Irigwe kingdom Mass cleansing: Eye witness account of that happened in Jos, Plateau

I am sure you are following what is going on in Jos. I asked my friend in Jos to update me as to the true situation on the Plateau. At times what we read on social media could be vastly different from on-ground situations.

This is his account of what happened.

a) About 2 wks ago, a group of KFH/militia/ bandits invaded the Irigwe kingdom in Plateau, killed and maimed scores of them, destroyed hecters of farmland and burnt over 150 houses. Soldiers stood by and did nothing to stop the carnage because according to them they were not ordered to intervene.? The chief of the place cried out for help and appealed to the soldiers to stop the carnage but they were rebuffed. The people were left to lick their wounds alone.

b) The people now decided to bury their dead last Saturday.

c) On the way to the burial site some vehicles appeared almost from nowhere and were heading towards the same site…one of the vehicles was carrying a coffin.

d) The convoy was intercepted and the people were questioned. Most of them could not even speak Hausa and couldn’t explain why they were in that area but only said they were following instructions. Apparently, they were foreign militia.

e) The coffin they carried was forced open and lo and behold, a heap of sophisticated weapons. That was when the locals knew that they were on a mission to kill those who would attend their mass burial.
f) The locals turned on them and started killing them. About 25 of them were killed and as many more injured. While some of them are still missing.

g) The locals went away with their weapons and this did not go down well with their sponsors.

h) The narrative being put out there is that a group of innocent Muslims from Ondo State who went to Bauchi for an Islamic festival and on their way back to Ikare in Ondo State were intercepted in Jos and were brutally massacred.

i) The survivors were interviewed and they said they were not from Ondo State and when the list of those killed was released, there was no Ooodua (Yoruba) man there. They were all Fulani. The governor of Ondo State has come out to say that no Yoruba was killed in Jos to debunk the narratives of the govt’s spokesperson.

j) The introduction of the Ondo angle to the story is to create a wedge between the Yoruba and the MB people now that there is a working relationship between the South and the Middle Belt people….still the same old ‘divide and rule’ tactics.

God will always intervene and see us through. We are keeping our fingers crossed, waiting, watching and praying.
Meg Barn