By Marie-Therese Nanlong

Bokkos, like other  local government  areas in Plateau State, is agrarian.Besides being the native home of the Challa, Ron, Kulere, Mushere, and other indigenous tribes, the local government also has settlers with  herders grazing their cattle in the area.

•The late Dah Lazarus Agai

Understandably, the rainy season would be a very busy period as farmers in the LGA concentrate on cultivating their crops while the herders will also graze their cows with green grass. It was in that setting that the Chairman of Bokkos Traditional Council and the Saf Ron/Kulere, Dah Lazarus Agai, was  murdered while on his way from his farm last Monday. He was murdered alongside his son, daughter-in-law, orderly (a police inspector) and another family member by unknown gunmen residents suspect to be herdsmen.

The killing came six months after another chief in the area,  Dah Ali Magaji, was murdered. Then the District Head of Mangun, Saf Anjong Adake, who was the Secretary of Bokkos Council of Chief, was killed. In the two previous killings, no arrest was made. But the latest murder jolted the people. The peace of the LGA was disrupted, forcing the state government to declare a 24-hour curfew in the area.

The protest against  the murder turned violent as security agents allegedly shot dead three Bokkos youths, injured eight even as the herdsmen, who the natives claimed  killed the monarch to take over the throne, allegedly attacked Sha village, killing two, setting a Catholic church ablaze and destroying the Parish House. A survivor of the attack which killed Agai, eight-year-old Angelo Afala, who is the grandson of the late monarch, said they were returning from the farm when some people appeared from the bush with rifles and started shooting at their car.

He said his grandfather and mother were hit by bullets which shattered the glasses of their car which ran into a ditch. The occupants, he said, abandoned the car while scampering for safety as the attackers kept chasing them. The boy, receiving treatment at the Plateau State Specialist Hospital  in Jos, added the when he fell into a gutter as he ran, the attackers thought he was dead. He was later rescued by people who came to the scene and taken to hospital.

The boy’s father, Mr. Jonathan Afala, whose wife died alongside her father, expressed sadness over the incident which he described  as unfortunate. He explained that the incident happened between Sha and Dafo area of the local government when the victims left the farm, adding that the driver of the vehicle which conveyed the victims was shot dead and the vehicle ran into a ditch. The attackers then got the opportunity of shooting sporadically and killing the victims. “Is it a crime for people to be hospitable? Is it a crime for people to be peaceful? Is this the price we have to pay for demanding that our voice be heard?”, Afala stated.

Governor Simon Lalong said he was “pained by the killing of the traditional ruler”, assuring that “government would fish out all enemies of peace in the state.” Senator Joshua Dariye, who represents Plateau-Central in the National Assembly and an indigene of Bokkos, also called for calm, “It is very confusing and emotions are running high and nobody has been able to establish a concrete reason for the killing of this great man. I have been talking to people to calm down. I can imagine the reaction from the people; the paramount ruler had been doing all he could to bring peace to the land,” Dariye said.

Similarly, the senator representing Plateau North, Jonah Jang, called on security agencies to do what it takes to unmask the killers of the Chairman of Bokkos Traditional Council and ensure the perpetrators of the barbaric act are promptly brought to justice. Jang urged the people of the locality to remain calm trusting that the needful would be done to ensure those who murdered the traditional ruler are apprehended and punished.

Meanwhile, security agencies in Plateau have stated their  resolve to unmask the killers and unravel the reason behind the dastardly act even as the Acting Inspector General of the Police, Ibrahim Idris, has appealed for calm and assured that the police will get to the root of the matter. At the time of this report, normalcy had returned to the area.