A former Minister of Youth and Sports under the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, Solomon Dalung, has said that the recent killings in Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State should not be described as farmer-herder clashes but rather as acts of terrorism and genocide
Speaking on ‘The Morning Show’, a breakfast programme on Arise News TV on Monday, monitored by our correspondent, Dalung argued that mislabelling violent attacks as ethnic or communal conflicts downplays the scale and intent behind them.
He said misrepresenting the violence in Bokkos Local Government Area (LGA) as communal clashes undermines the severity of the crisis and shields the real perpetrators.
“One major issue on the Plateau is mislabelling criminals based on ethnic identities or community relations,” Dalung said. “The violence here isn’t a farmer-herder conflict; it’s terrorism. These groups have an enclave similar to those in the Northeast, where they steal cattle, seize land and establish a parallel government in the bush.”
His comments came in response to a recent wave of attacks in parts of Plateau State.
According to the Bokkos Cultural Development Council (BCDC), suspected bandits killed over 10 people on Wednesday night. By Saturday, the death toll had risen to 52. The latest massacre occurred barely a week after another attack in a neighbouring community.
“There is nothing like herder-farmer clashes on the Plateau,” Dalung emphasized. “These are terrorists. They have enclaves. They grab land, wrestle cattle, and displace natives. In the bush, there is a government, and these places are known.”
Dalung criticised the federal government’s handling of the crisis, calling the recent establishment of a Ministry of Livestock an ineffective distraction.
“Let us not be hiding about the Ministry of Livestock. Ministry of Livestock cannot even do anything about this problem,” he said.
“If you sum up this, you will come back to this issue of lack of political will. If the political will to deal with the situation is there, these people will be given their rightful designation. They are terrorists.”
He further debunked excuses given by security operatives over poor accessibility to affected communities.
“The security said, well, we couldn’t do anything because there are no access roads. I couldn’t fathom that because in a technologically-driven economy like ours, would the issue be that of access roads? What happened to drones, cameras, and other sophisticated gadgets of intelligence gathering?”
Dalung warned that continued failure to label the crisis accurately would embolden the perpetrators and leave vulnerable communities unprotected.
“If we must be very honest in dealing with the Plateau situation, first, we will have to stop pretending that it is herder-farmers’ clashes. Not at all. It is terrorism. It is genocidal because it has met the international definition of genocide,” he said.
“When a group of people attack another group with the intention of wiping them off the face of the earth, it is genocide. When you employ a policy of starvation to wipe a community or a group of people, it’s genocide.”
Dalung urged the federal government to stop attaching ethnic labels to the attackers, insisting that doing so obscures their criminality.
“Yes, predominantly, they belong to an ethnic nationality. But I don’t see them as operating in the overall interest of that particular ethnic nationality. Rather, they are criminals. And so if we do not treat them as criminals, we will miss the point.”
He concluded with a jab at repeated assurances by government officials that they are “on top of the situation.”
“We’ll continue to hold visits to Plateau State by government officials, and they will be on top of the situation, while the criminals are truly on top of the situation.”
