By Raymond Gukas, Jos
A widow of the April 7, 2020 attack in Bassa LGA of Plateau State, Pst. Mrs Rose Mathew has disclosed how shocking she was over the attack that claimed her husband’s live and three others.
She narrated in tears that “I’m in shock over the killing of innocent people among whom is my husband, who left me with pregnancy and two little children to fend for. I cannot be able to cater for them, for I’m down-cast by this uninformed exit of my dear husband.”
The widow was lamenting her situation when the Emancipation Centre for Crisis Victims in Nigeria, (ECCVN), visited her where she stressed: “I need your prayers and intervention at this travailed moment I never contemplated, please”
The National Coordinator of ECCVN, Dalyop Solomon Mwantiri said the body uncovered that four locals namely, Pst. Mathew Tegwi (aged 27), minister in charge of ECWA Ngbranzongo, Mr. Adi Sunday, (aged 21), Duh Abba (aged 37) and Ishaku Clement (aged 12) were shot dead while Abba Yori and Monday Adams survived with injuries and presently in an undisclosed hospital.
According to sources, the attack was said to have been unleashed by armed men herdsmen who have in recent times, killed no fewer than 11 persons in the area from the beginning of 2020.
He regretted that the present resumption of killings was disturbing and the kellers were not even mindful of the COVID-19, a global pandemic that ought to have caused stoppage to the inhumanity of terrorist elements.
He lamented further that it appeared, those behind these acts will not stop at nothing until the entire ethnic nationality of Irigwe is entirely wiped out, going by the “aggressors’ modus operandi.”
Commenting on the incident, Sunday Nhwie, the hamlet head of the affected area said, “at about 8:20pm of April 7, 2020 when it was raining, we heard heavy gunfire by armed Fulani herdsmen who stormed our village, shouting their usual enchantment. Everyone took to his or her heel for safety. We lost 4 people including a pastor and teenage boy while 2 people were injured…”
Zarachi Sunday (Youth Leader of Kwall District and Chief Aweze Doro, the Vice President of Irigwe Development Association both cried out for needed attention to the Irigwe chiefdom in view of the continued hostilities being visited on innocent locals, who they say deserved Government protection.
They passionately appealed to the appropriate authorities as well as spirited individuals to come to their aid and end the aggression of the Fulani herders.
For Musa Aga, member representing Bassa constituency at Plateau State House of Assembly, the state of insecurity affecting his constituents in the recent times was a thing of worry.
According to him, he had recently made frantic effors to have an interface with “the Governor of Plateau State over the security challenges confronting his people who are part and parcel of the State, but couldn’t have access due to COVID-19 pandemic which has become a global health challenge.
The ECCVN then used the opportunity to urged securiry agents to assiduously swing into action to trail, arrest, investigatigate as well as prosecute the Perpetrators of the carnages.
The Centre similarly called on local villages and communities to wake up to their responsibility of safeguarding their immediate environment through ceaseless watching, prayers, and also promptly report to security agents any suspicious movements despite hysterical disposition of the world over COVID-19 pandemic.
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