JONATHAN ISHAKU
There is a tragic psychological stage in every prolonged violent conflict when the victim is no longer attacked only on the battlefield but also in the public imagination. Such a victim is killed in his village, displaced from his ancestral land, robbed of his farm, mocked for mourning too loudly, accused of provoking his own attackers and, then, when he organises to survive, is rebranded as the aggressor.
This represents one of the most dangerous phases of the Plateau and Middle Belt crisis.
It is the stage at which communities that have buried their dead for decades begin to be viewed with suspicion simply for remaining alive. Their trauma is interpreted as hostility. Their vigilance is described as militancy. Their demands for justice are dismissed as ethnic bitterness or entitlement. Their refusal to disappear quietly or remain silent is portrayed as aggression.
This way, the perpetual victim is made to bear two burdens simultaneously: the pain of violence and the blame for that violence.
It is for this reason that recent public narratives surrounding violence in Jos deserve the utmost caution.
Former Minister, Barrister Solomon Dalung, recently circulated a deeply emotional account of the reported killing of a young man, Abdullahi Bello, in Rantya, Jos. According to the account, Bello was allegedly attacked after being mistaken for a Fulani because of his fair complexion.
The story, which was widely shared on social media, stated that his sister, Hannatu Bello, later found him in hospital with machete wounds and that he died in the early hours of Monday. Similar versions have circulated online, although the publicly available reports appear to rely largely on social media accounts rather than a comprehensive police-backed reconstruction of the incident.
It must be clearly stated that whether or not Abdullahi Bello was murdered because of his appearance, his death is tragic, condemnable and deserving of justice. No decent person should celebrate or justify the killing of any innocent Nigerian. His family deserves sympathy, truth and justice.
However, sympathy must never replace context. Grief should not become a vehicle for propaganda. Responsible public figures have a duty to resist the temptation to transform an unresolved killing into a sweeping indictment of an entire city or people, as was clearly implied by the manner in which the story was presented.
The claim that a man was killed simply because he “looked Fulani” is too serious to be introduced casually into an already volatile environment without careful verification. Jos is home to large Fulani, Hausa, Muslim, Christian, indigenous and settler populations. Had the city truly deteriorated into a place where appearance alone had become a death sentence, its streets would present a far more terrifying reality. That is precisely why context matters.
Even if Bello was believed by someone to be Fulani, critical questions remain unanswered. What triggered the violence? Was there an earlier incident? Was it an act of mob violence, criminality, reprisal or a personal dispute? Who were the attackers? What conclusions did the police reach? What was the complete sequence of events?
Without answers to these questions, the account remains an unresolved story that risks becoming insinuation rather than investigation.
Cost of ethnic labelling
This concern became even more significant following another troubling development: the reported description of a group as “Berom militia” in connection with the attack around the National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies (NIPSS), Kuru.
Newspapers, including Premium Times, reported that NIPSS was attacked on June 16, 2026, resulting in fatalities after a gun battle between attackers and security personnel. Subsequent reports indicated that the Director-General of NIPSS, Prof. Ayo Omotayo, attracted widespread criticism after referring to “Berom militia” during a national television interview.
Daily Post reported that a Plateau senator rejected the characterisation, while the Berom Youth Moulders Association threatened legal action over the remark. THE NIGERIA STANDARD also reported that Berom youth leaders described the ethnic profiling as “reckless, misleading and unsubstantiated”, insisting that the Berom nation has no militia organisation.
The danger is obvious. When influential voices attach ethnic identities to violent incidents without evidence, they do more than describe conflict; they create conditions for future conflict.
Plateau is not an unwritten page. It is a deeply wounded landscape. Human Rights Watch has consistently documented how Jos, once celebrated for peaceful coexistence, became the scene of widespread killings and destruction, particularly since September 2001, when hundreds were killed and tens of thousands displaced.
In subsequent years, Plateau, Benue, Kaduna and other parts of the Middle Belt experienced repeated cycles of communal violence, reprisals, impunity and failed accountability. Its 2013 report specifically highlighted the failure to investigate and prosecute inter-communal violence, leaving many communities convinced that justice had effectively been abandoned.
Similarly, Amnesty International has repeatedly warned that attacks on Plateau communities expose serious failures by the Nigerian authorities to provide adequate security.
The Middle Belt conflict extends far beyond ordinary neighbourhood disputes. It has evolved into a prolonged struggle involving land ownership, identity, political power, grazing routes, demographic anxieties, religion, citizenship, indigeneity and the right of minority ethnic communities to continue existing without being overwhelmed by larger national narratives.
The International Crisis Group has likewise described farmer-herder violence in Nigeria as a worsening security crisis driven by land pressure, climate change, weapons proliferation, impunity and state failure.
Yet, one particularly painful aspect of the Plateau experience is that indigenous communities often find themselves denied even the language with which to describe their suffering.
When they speak of invasion, they are told to call it “clashes.” When they describe genocide, they are advised to regard it as “normal killings.” When they speak of terror, they are instructed to say “farmer-herder conflict.” When they complain of ancestral lands being seized, they are told it is merely climate migration. When they mourn, they are urged to reconcile. When they organise to defend themselves, they are branded “militias.”
This is not merely a political challenge. It is also a profound psychological one.
Trauma, public responsibility, the search for truth
Trauma psychology teaches that prolonged violence fundamentally alters perception. Communities repeatedly attacked naturally become hyper-vigilant. Ordinary strangers may appear threatening. Night-time movement becomes suspicious. Rumours spread faster than facts. Fear gradually becomes an essential survival mechanism.
This phenomenon is not unique to Plateau. It is a recognised consequence of prolonged insecurity.
Communities exposed to repeated violence develop defensive perceptions. Danger is read into unfamiliar faces, accents, clothing, cattle movement, motorcycles or unusual gatherings.
At times, such heightened awareness saves lives. At other times, tragically, it may contribute to mistakes, panic, mob violence or retaliatory attacks.
That is precisely why leaders, journalists and public intellectuals must function as fire extinguishers rather than petrol cans.
Sociologically, prolonged conflict hardens group identities. People stop seeing individuals and begin seeing categories. One person becomes simply “Fulani”; another “Berom”; another “settler”; another “indigene.”
The crime of one individual is transferred to an entire ethnic group. Killings committed by unknown persons are interpreted through accumulated historical fears. Old wounds become the framework through which every new incident is understood. In such circumstances, even truthful reporting can become dangerous when stripped of context.
From the perspective of political science, reckless ethnic labelling serves particular power interests. Branding a threatened indigenous community as a “militia” without evidence lays the groundwork for state suspicion, surveillance, collective punishment and moral equivalence between victims and aggressors.
Indeed, some voices have already begun calling for the relocation of the long-established NIPSS from Kuru. Such narratives encourage the nation to dismiss the grievances of affected communities by portraying them as combatants rather than victims, thereby diverting attention from state failure.
Journalistically, the primary duty in conflict reporting is not speed but accuracy; not emotion but context; not social media virality but responsibility. A story claiming that a man was killed simply because he looked Fulani may provoke outrage across Kano, Abuja, Lagos, London or New York.
However, if incomplete, it may also create a false and deeply damaging image of Jos as a city where ethnic vigilantes roam the streets searching for victims based solely on appearance. Such narratives are capable of provoking reprisals, deepening hatred, frightening visitors and residents alike, and providing propaganda for those determined to portray Plateau’s indigenous peoples as inherently violent.
This is the tragedy of narrative violence: words often prepare the ground for bloodshed.
There is no doubt that innocent Fulani, Hausa, Berom, Anaguta, Afizere, Ngas, Mwaghavul, Irigwe and many others have suffered at various stages of Plateau’s long-running crisis. No honest observer should deny the pain experienced by innocent families.
Yet, it is equally dishonest to pretend that the violence has been entirely symmetrical in either meaning, impact or territorial consequences. Across the Middle Belt, many indigenous communities continue to report repeated night attacks, displacement, destruction of farms, occupation of ancestral lands and state responses that are often delayed, inadequate or politically compromised.
Amnesty International’s recent warnings regarding Plateau killings further demonstrate that the crisis remains active and deadly.
The central issue, therefore, is not whether Abdullahi Bello’s life mattered. It unquestionably did. The issue is whether his tragic death should become an ethnic weapon before all the facts are established. It should not.
Similarly, the issue is not whether NIPSS possesses the right to condemn attacks on its facilities. It certainly does. The issue is whether such a respected national policy institution should casually attach an ethnic label to alleged attackers without the level of evidence expected of an institution of its standing. It should not.
Plateau has suffered immensely from careless language. The expression “unknown gunmen” has concealed too many identifiable patterns. “Farmer-herder clashes” has hidden too many invasions. “Reprisal” has excused too many massacres. “Militia” has criminalised too many frightened communities. “Mistaken identity” may yet become another expression that obscures more than it reveals.
What is needed is not silence but disciplined speech.
Public figures must learn to say, “A man has been killed; let the police investigate fully.”
They must learn to say, “No ethnic group should be blamed until evidence is produced.”
They must say, “The family deserves justice, but the community deserves truth.”
They must say, “We condemn the killing without inflaming the city.”
They must also be willing to admit, “We do not yet know enough.”
Such statements may never become social media trends, but they may save lives.
Every word matters
The Plateau crisis has reached a point where every sentence matters. Every headline matters. Every ethnic label matters. Every careless Facebook post matters. Every interview granted by a public official matters.
A former minister, lawyer, journalist, traditional ruler, cleric, security analyst or director of a national policy institution does not speak as an ordinary passer-by. Their words carry authority. When spoken recklessly, those words legitimise suspicion.
This is why posterity must be invoked, not merely as rhetoric but as a solemn warning.
Those who distort the Plateau narrative today may receive temporary applause from political or ethnic constituencies. They may be celebrated for “speaking for our people.” They may trend briefly on social media.
Yet, the dead will remain dead. The displaced will remain displaced. Another reprisal may be triggered. Another innocent traveller may be attacked. Another village may be destroyed. Another community may be blamed simply for defending itself.
When history is eventually written, it will ask who spoke the truth, who inflamed hatred, who suppressed context and who chose political advantage over peace.
The moral responsibility before every Nigerian is, therefore, unmistakable: condemn every killing; reject every form of ethnic profiling; demand evidence before labelling communities; insist on justice for victims; recognise the historic wounds suffered by indigenous Plateau and Middle Belt communities; resist propaganda from every side; and, above all, refuse to turn grief into a matchstick in a dry forest.
For in a land already soaked with blood, the most dangerous weapon is not always the machete. Sometimes, it is the careless sentence spoken by an influential man.
Nde Ishaku, veteran journalist, essayist, lecturer and author, writes via bishilee2017@gmail.com