Grief and raw anger swept through Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State on Saturday as seven persons killed in a gun attack on the Miango community were committed to the ground in a ceremony that doubled as a protest against the government’s failure to protect lives.
The funeral, conducted at a primary school within the community, drew mourners who arrived not only with tears but with placards, transforming the burial ground into a scene of both sorrow and defiance.
The occasion fell within days of a separate mass burial in Dorowa Babuje, Barkin Ladi Local Government Area, where nine persons killed in a terror strike were interred barely a week earlier, underscoring the relentless wave of bloodshed sweeping across the state.
Placards held aloft by grieving attendees bore inscriptions that captured the community’s anguish, “Irigwe lives matter,” “Stop this Christian genocide,” “End Christian Genocide in Nigeria,” “Listen to the cries of our widows,” and “Justice for the slain victims.”
Speaking with barely concealed rage, the National President of the Irigwe Youths Movement, Ezekiel Bini, said the community had endured two decades of killings without meaningful intervention from any level of government.
“We are tired of burying our people. We demand justice and protection for our community,” he said, his voice cutting through the mourning crowd.
Bini went further, rejecting what he described as a deliberate attempt to dismiss the targeted nature of the killings.
“When we say there is Christian genocide going on, some people won’t believe it. But right here, among the corpses, there is a Fulani man who is a Christian,” he said.
He also fired a warning at security operatives, insisting the community would resist any move to detain its members over incidents they had no hand in.
“If you arrest any Irigwe man because of the death of any cow, we will not accept it. Enough is enough,” Bini stated.
The Paramount Ruler of the Irigwe ethnic nationality, His Royal Highness Ronku Aku, did not mince words as he identified the fuel feeding the violence in his domain.
“Our problem is open grazing. My people are being killed. Open grazing must stop for us to have peace in Nigeria,” the monarch said, appealing directly to the government to step in before the situation spiralled beyond control.
“I’m calling on the government to intervene in this matter. You can’t be a Chief without the people,” Aku added, his words carrying the weight of a ruler watching his subjects fall one by one.
The Chairman of Bassa Local Government Area, Joshua Riti, sought to calm fraying nerves, pledging that security agencies were being mobilised to track down those responsible for the killings.
Laid to rest on Saturday was Abbas Musa, a trained health officer employed by Bassa LGA and an alumnus of Enugu State University of Science and Technology, who was gunned down inside his residence on Monday, February 23, 2026.
Sharing the same grave yard were five members of a single family, Nancy Monday, Nuhu Isaiah, Henry Dah, Zongo Sunday and Tarma Monday, who were hunted down inside their own bedrooms and killed by the attackers three days later, on February 26, 2026.
As the community counted its dead, residents renewed urgent demands on both the Federal and Plateau State governments to deploy reinforced security presence and bring an end to the cycle of terror that has turned ordinary life in Bassa into a daily gamble with death.
