Aid is delivered to survivors of the attacks in Bokkos. ECCVN
Addressing the media on April 8, a spokesman for the Plateau State chapter of the Coalition of Fulani Registered Organizations (COFRO) made a series of demands of the state government to restore peace to Plateau after weeks of violence. The statement, which came just days after suspected Fulani militias simultaneously attacked 15 villages in the Bokkos local government area, killing 56 people, is being interpreted as a claim of responsibility.
COFRO subsequently denied that its calls amounted to “preconditions” for peace.
The group’s demands included the disbandment of the only security bodies that provide some protection to the Christian communities against genocidal Fulani attacks, CSI’s International President, Dr. John Eibner, noted in a post on X.
Between March 24 and April 13, at least 126 residents of rural Christian communities in the state were killed when their villages were invaded by suspected Fulani militants. The attacks drove thousands of people from their homes and cast a shadow over Easter celebrations.
Fulani demands
At a press conference in neighboring Kaduna state on April 8, the Plateau chairman of COFRO, Garba Abdullahi Muhammad, blamed “a lack of justice from the local government and security agency” for the escalation of violence in the state, according to a media readout.
“We’re demanding immediate removal of operational commander section 5, Operation Safe Haven, Bokkos, Col. Dauda Magem, for bias on professional military conduct, inciting violence, inciting religious intolerance and bigotry, and incompetence and violation of military ethics and constitutional provisions,” Muhammad said in a video clip of his address broadcast by TVC News.
He also called for the disbandment of the “notorious and anti-Fulani squad, the state security outfit codenamed Operation Rainbow”, as well as the arrest and prosecution of its operatives “involved in killing, maiming, arresting and displacing Fulani communities.”
Additionally, Muhammad called on the federal government to set up an independent inquiry into the killings and to compensate the victims, regardless of religion or ethnicity.
Terror campaign against Christian population
Since 2001, Fulani militias have seized more than 150 villages in Plateau State. The federal government has deployed two military missions – Operation Safe Haven and Operation Rainbow – to restore peace to the state, but they have proved largely ineffective in deterring Fulani attacks.
“Garba Abdullahi [Muhammad], the spokesman for the Fulani Coalition,… announces conditions for the cessation of their terror campaign against the indigenous, predominantly Christian rural population of the Middle Belt’s Plateau State,” Eibner wrote on X.
“He demands rendering dysfunctional the only security institutions – Operations Rainbow and Safe Haven – that stand in the way of further Fulani ethnic and religious cleansing.”
“The Fulani demand for the dismantling the state’s security institutions in Plateau State comes in response to a new initiative of the Governor Caleb Mutfwang to upgrade them,” Eibner pointed out.
The governor recently announced a deal to enhance surveillance in Plateau through the use of advanced drones.
Angry response
A Bokkos-based organization condemned the Fulani coalition statement, and called for the immediate arrest of its leaders.
The Bokkos Cultural Development Council (BCDC) said the COFRO demands “seem to indicate a calculated plan to perpetuate threats and maintain a climate of terror in Plateau villages,” Daily Post reported.
According to the BCDC, the statement “exposes the true identity of the terrorists and their financiers, thereby revealing their intentions to undermine the sovereignty of the Nigerian state.”
Speaking to TVC News, a former military governor of Plateau State, Samuel Atukum, also rejected the conditions made by the Fulani group and called for the immediate arrest of the leadership by the authorities. “With this, you will know who are behind the crisis. It was clear this man was speaking on behalf of the Fulani herdsmen,” said Atukum, who served as governor in 1984-1985, during the military regime of General Muhammadu Buhari, himself a Fulani Muslim.
Since 2018, militias from the Muslim Fulani ethnic group have been systematically attacking Christian villages in Nigeria’s fertile Middle Belt region, occupying their land and displacing millions. CSI issued a genocide warning for Christians in Nigeria in 2020.
“This violence is driven by the longstanding determination of Nigeria’s Muslim Fulani-dominated ruling class to gain dominion over the predominantly Christian Middle Belt,” Eibner commented. “The Fulani militias are their instruments. They are waging jihad – in pursuit of the same goals as their spiritual and political forefather, Usman Dan Fodio, the founder of Nigeria’s 19th century Fulani-led caliphate.”
