Killers have killed in Bokkos before. In fact, for more than 10 years now, the area has become a favourite stomping ground for killers who kill, flee without opposition and return to kill again. It is an area where history continues to be rewritten in blood by killers who care nothing for human lives.
On December 23, 2023, killers fell upon the communities like locusts. About 200 people were slaughtered. In the aftermath of the attacks, Kashim Shettima, who was only sworn in as the country’s vice-president in May 2023, visited the area, pledging relief and justice for the affected communities.
The killings in Bokkos have not been without a pattern. After previous attacks, residents have blamed killer Fulani herdsmen for carrying out the attacks to displace them and settle in their homes and their farmlands.
These attacks have also happened in other parts of Plateau State, where ethnic and religious fault lines have been exploited to fuel bloodshed.
Each attack in Bokkos always comes with immeasurable destruction of lives and properties. The attackers not only kill all within their sight, they also make sure buildings are torched.
These attacks leave wounds that will take a very long time to heal if ever, and there is hardly ever enough time for healing because before the surviving victims can put their lives back together, the attackers return, even deadlier than before.
The besieged families in Bokkos must be experiencing the kind of distress many families around the country have felt in the past 10 years. Men who have lost their wives and children, women who have lost their husbands and children, and children who have lost their parents must all be feeling the kind of unimaginable pain that many Nigerians have been forced to experience in the past 10 years due to these terrorist attacks.
With families ripped apart and livelihoods destroyed, these attacks are especially an attack on the family.
In any serious sovereign country under the authority of a serious government, a single security breach which claims lives and destroys property should be considered too much. When these attacks happen over and over again, claiming scores and the government relapses into a routine of visiting the affected communities and making empty promises only to watch those attacks happen, such a government is weak. In a world besieged by ruthless non-state actors, a weak state is an unforgivable aberration.
It is a sign of weakness for the government that citizens can be attacked right in their communities and slaughtered with chilling abandon by criminals. It is a sign of weakness that these killers can return again and again to the scene of their past crimes with nothing to stop them. These attacks weaken the legitimacy and authority of the government.
Which heads have ever rolled because the killings won’t just stop in Bokkos or in other parts of the country? Who has ever paid the price with their jobs for such deadly incompetence? Why is the government reluctant to investigate repeated claims of compromise and complicity by some security personnel operating around Bokkos and environs?
What steps were taken after previous attacks to resettle communities, empower them against future attacks, and discourage further attacks? Who are these attackers? Who is sponsoring their campaigns of death?
The fact that these killings have become serial and systematic calls for an urgent review of Nigeria’s security architecture. It is also clear that a single approach to insecurity does not fit every part of the country. The security challenges in some parts of the country are unique and demand unique approaches. The government must adapt.
Again, communities must be empowered to defend themselves from these menacing killers. Local security initiatives should be backed by law, empowered and properly funded to cover areas Nigeria’s stretched security personnel may not get to on time. Security personnel should also prioritize early warning system. With proper diligence, intelligence and information about impending attacks should be gathered and acted upon to preclude these attacks even before they occur.
Nigerians will not escape the cyclone threatening to break it apart if these chilling cycles of killings don’t stop, not just in Bokkos and in Plateau State, but across the length and breadth of the country.
Kene Obiezu,
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