On July 4, 2026, around 7 p.m., three Christian community security guards, known as vigilantes in Nigeria, were shot dead while on watch at the edge of Sabon Layi in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area. The three victims were Sunday, 25; Benjamin James, 33; and Godwin Yakubu, 27. Only Benjamin James was married.
Community youth leader Samuel Jeremiah, age 41, said the three watchmen were unpaid volunteers doing “the normal vigilante watch to make sure that everybody sleep well” when gunmen concealed nearby “shoot from afar” and killed all three.
Jeremiah described the area as one of the most dangerous stretches in Barkin Ladi, noting that the two-to-three-kilometer route between Rantiya (Sabon Layi) and Takwai becomes impassable after 7 p.m. He stressed that the men, like other local vigilantes, received no government pay or recognition for their watch duty. “Nobody is paid for what we are doing.”
According to Jeremiah, the town has been “under siege” since roughly 2001, with attacks continuing to the present, and no ward in the area has escaped assault. “Nowhere is safe in Barkin Ladi,” he said, adding that a resident “can only be safe for a moment, if it doesn’t come to you.”
Military forces have been deployed to the area under Operation Enduring Peace, and Jeremiah said attacks in Barkin Ladi were among those that helped prompt the operation. Mobile police and the Department of State Services also maintain a presence, though he said the mobile police contingent consists of just three officers.
Despite this deployment, Jeremiah said the two-to-three-kilometer stretch between Rantiya (Sabon Layi) and Takwai becomes impassable after 7 p.m., and gunfire is a nightly occurrence. “If you didn’t hear a gunshot one night, it means you overslept.”
Jeremiah pushed back against remarks by some government officials accusing Berom Christian communities of maintaining an armed, paid militia. He rejected the militia label, saying the Christian village security guards, watchmen, or vigilantes are unpaid volunteers who do not possess sophisticated weapons. By contrast, the Fulani have sophisticated weapons and financial incentives in the form of ransom payments.
On the pattern of attacks, Jeremiah said the assailants were exclusively Fulani. He distinguished them from neighboring indigenous groups that, he said, the Berom communities have never fought, including the Ron, Mwaghavul, Irigwe, Atakar, and Ganawuri.
He described an escalation over time. According to Jeremiah, attacks began with machetes and arson, then progressed to sophisticated weapons, and eventually to the transport of mercenaries by vehicle. He alleged that local collaborators harbor these mercenaries within Barkin Ladi town, sheltering them until an attack occurs, after which they disappear back into the bush.
Jeremiah said the current method often involves concealing armed men among cattle herds brought into the town, followed by gunfire once they are inside. He added that the attackers escape without security forces recovering any bodies. More recently, he said, attackers have used motorbikes, moving between Fulani settlements (“Ruga”) after attacks, citing shootings on May 1–3 as an example.
Jeremiah alleged that some Fulani settlers have used proceeds from attacks and kidnapping ransoms. He cited figures of one to two million naira, to buy land and houses within Barkin Ladi town, sometimes through Hausa intermediaries. He also alleged that wounded attackers have reportedly been treated within the town before returning to the bush, and claimed Boko Haram elements have also been harbored locally.
He listed a series of surrounding villages that, he said, have been depopulated by repeated attacks and bombings, including Rerin, Tahoss, Rahwol, Yelwa Rangam, Lugfai, Dawang, and Rantiya (Rentiya). Resettlement effort in Rantiya collapsed after the man leading the rebuilding was killed. .
Asked what should be done, Jeremiah said he holds governments at every level — local, state, federal, and international bodies up to the African Union and the United Nations — responsible for failing the people of Plateau State.
“I’ve seen a Fulani carrying guns that even our military don’t carry,” he said, describing residents as defenseless against better-armed attackers whose identities, he argued, are known but remain unaddressed.
On claims that the violence reflects a farmer-herder or resource conflict rather than religious targeting, Jeremiah argued that attackers routinely invoke “Allahu Akbar” during killings, which he said is evidence of religious motivation rather than a land dispute.
Christians are the primary targets, he argued, as evidenced by the most recent attacks, while no Muslims were killed in the same coordinated assaults. He also said Christians traveling on foot or by motorbike outside Barkin Ladi town after 5 p.m., for instance on the road from Sho, risk being killed, while Muslims making the same trip do not.
Jeremiah said the years of violence have damaged his faith in institutional Christianity, though not his belief in God or Jesus Christ. He argued that church leadership has failed persecuted communities by continuing to collect tithes and offerings from congregations even after churches were burned and members displaced, sending the proceeds to denominational headquarters rather than using them to support local widows and orphans.
“If they really want to understand, let them send their representatives to our communities,” he said. “Let them come in the quiet of the morning and speak with the widows and orphans. Then they will see what has happened here.”
“Their parents have been killed. Every day we are burying people,” he said. “If we gathered all the widows in this land, we wouldn’t need to say anything more. Their presence would tell the whole story.”
Until Nigerian law changes to allow Christian villages to field armed watchmen, the battle between the Fulani and the Christians will continue to be AK-47s against muskets. So far, the AK-47s are winning.
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