By Yunusa Tambe, Jos

A prominent traditional ruler in Jos Plateau state, Chief, Yusuf Sarki had only stepped out for pepper
soup. The elderly chief of his community in Angwan Rukuba, Jos North Local Government Area of
Plateau State, had gone out on Palm Sunday evening to a local bar called Stomdass along the main road
to relax. But he never came back.
Sarki, according to residents, was peaceful, genuinely loved by his people and consistently made efforts
to hold the community together. He was the man residents went to when something needed to be
resolved or when neighbours were quarrelling. His death, those close to him say, left a hole in Angwan
Rukuba that no appointment or replacement can fill.
At about 7.30 p.m. on March 29, gunmen stormed Angwan Rukuba, firing indiscriminately into the
community. Witnesses said the attackers arrived during a power outage, some of the gunmen were said
to have dressed in military uniforms.
Emmanuel Daniel, Sarki’s nephew and a youth leader in the community, told The Whistler that he had
returned from a church conference that same evening.

“When I came back from a conference we had from Friday to Sunday, I was tired. So, on getting home, I
changed and went into my bathroom to take a bath, and I realised I was not having soup. I went out to
get soup, just then, I heard some gunshots,” he said.
“On my way to get the soup, I saw people running from the main road to the street,” he said.
He and a group of youths scampered to safety as the gunmen advanced. What unsettled Emmanuel
most, he said, was not the shooting itself. It was the manner it was done.
“They were walking so comfortably, and they were shooting anyhow. If you are blocking them or they
meet you on the way, they will just shoot you,” he said.
The community’s only nearby security post, the Angwa Nkuba Police Outpost, was deserted. When
Emmanuel and the other youths rushed there, they found it abandoned.
“We didn’t even see any of them inside the station. I believe they had run for their lives too,” he said.
Troops of Sector 1, Operation Enduring Peace, were eventually mobilised following a distress call.
Security personnel, including the Nigerian Army, arrived at around 8.45 p.m. to restore order and secure
the affected community.
Yusuf Sarki and dozens of others had been killed or injured before their arrival.
“Some of them (residents) were dead. Some of them were injured. Those who were injured, we tried to
rush them to the hospital,” Daniel said. It was then he realised his uncle was among those killed.
“We recorded 33 deaths as a result of the attack. This was only on Palm Sunday.”, he added
The loss, Daniel said, is immeasurable not just to Sarki’s family, his two wives and seven children, but to
the entire community that relied on him.
In the weeks preceding the attack, threats had circulated on social media following an incident in the
neighbouring Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, where three men from the north were killed under
unclear circumstances while travelling to a village market.
“The guys that were killed were indigenes of Jos north. They were on their way to a village market when
they were attacked,” Daniel further explained.
He believes the attack on his community was a retaliation for the killing of the three men in Jos North.
“I don’t see where someone will offend you and then you go and retaliate on another person. Instead of
going to where you were offended, you come back to our home,” he lamented.
“We have been living in peace. Any time they come to our area, they do their market, they sell, and they
even sell water for people. Things have been going so smoothly and so nicely.”
Meanwhile, the Angwan Rukuba horrors did not end on Palm Sunday. In response to the attack, the
Plateau State Government imposed a 48-hour curfew on Jos North Local Government Area. Daniel,
however, said that lifting the curfew barely two days after exposed neighbouring communities to
attacks.
Unknown gunmen, suspected to be bandits, attacked the Gari Ya Waye area of Angwan Rukuba on the
same Palm Sunday night and killed scores of people.

“Our people were so naive on this. Immediately they lifted the curfew, and some of them came out to
go on with their normal activities because they didn’t see it as a crisis,” he said.
He said the attackers had positioned themselves along routes that residents in the mostly Christian-
dominated area ply to the market or their workplaces.
“They blocked a road and stopped a car at Bauti Junction and asked, ‘Is there any Christian in the car?’
And one man was the only Christian in the car. That was how they brought this man out. They butchered
him,” Daniel said.
The victim, who was travelling from Kogi to the state, survived the attack.
Plateau State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang, during a condolence visit to Angwan Rukuba, pledged justice
for the victims.
The Armed Conflict Location and Event Data (ACLED) has attributed these attacks to criminality, weak
governance, and long-standing communal tensions.
Following the sporadic attacks in the state, a United States lawmaker, Riley Moore, recently called on
the United States President, Donald Trump to take what he described as “forceful action” to protect
Christians in Nigeria following renewed attacks in Plateau State.
Moore made the call in a statement while reacting to reports and videos from Barkin Ladi Local
Government Area of Plateau State, where gunmen attacked mourners during a mass burial on
Wednesday.
Several people were feared killed and many others injured after the assailants reportedly opened fire on
residents gathered to bury seven people who had been killed earlier in the community.
In his statement, Moore contrasted Nigeria’s military intervention in neighbouring Benin Republic during
an attempted coup with what he described as the government’s failure to stop killings in parts of
Plateau State.
“When I visited Nigeria, the government responded swiftly to quell a coup in Benin,” he said, referring to
Nigeria’s December 2025 deployment of fighter jets and troops to support the Beninese government
against an attempted takeover.
“Nigeria’s willingness to step in to stop a violent attack in another country, while they stand by as their
own Christian citizens are brutalised, makes these absolutely horrific scenes unfolding in Plateau State
all the more unconscionable,” Moore stated.
He alleged that Christians gathered for a mass burial “were viciously murdered by radical Islamic
terrorists,” adding that the Nigerian government had failed to act despite warnings of impending
attacks.
“The Nigerian Government could root out the terrorism and stop the martyrdom of its own citizens. But,
despite receiving early warnings of impending attacks, they are nowhere to be found as Christians are
murdered for their faith, like lambs led to slaughter. Enough is enough,” he added.
Moore further said he was encouraged that the Trump administration had identified the protection of
Christians in Nigeria in its counterterrorism strategy, adding, “Now, I am asking the Trump
Administration to take forceful action to defend our innocent brothers and sisters in Christ in the Middle
Belt of Nigeria, the epicenter of an ongoing Christian genocide.”, he added.