Plateau: Allegation of breeding militias is false, unfounded — MDA 

The Mwaghavul Development Association (MDA) has expressed concern about accusations that it owns a militia group and collaborates with security agencies to unleash mayhem on the Fulani, claiming that the allegations are false, unfounded, and an intentional attempt to tarnish the image of those who have been victims of Fulani terrorist attacks

Deacon Bulus Dabit, the Association’s National President, dismissed the allegations, saying: “Allegations of collaboration with DSS against Fulani in our land are unfounded; this is unacceptable to us because DSS is a security force working within the land. We are not the ones engaging the bandits; they are. It was a baseless allegation, and I am challenging them to come forward and substantiate it”.

He also refuted the Fulani’s claim that they were being monitored by drones, saying that the drones seen could be from security agencies monitoring vulnerable communities in the area.

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“We do not use drones; I’d like to believe they mistook military drones for private ones. So when they see drones, they should know it’s the security agencies working.

“The claim that we have a militia group is a figment of their imagination and a deliberate attempt to tarnish our image. We have always maintained that our people will defend themselves whenever necessary, as it is our constitutional right. And we don’t need to have a militia to accomplish this. So we don’t need an organized militia to protect ourselves. It is completely wrong to portray us as a militia in this way,” he said.

Deacon Dabit, who claimed that at least 750 natives from the Mangu local government area alone had been killed between January and the present, stated that the figure was not exaggerated because those killed were frequently buried in public.

He challenged the Fulani group, which claimed they were being killed by natives, to provide proof.

The MDA National President stated that the primary motives of the attackers on the prowl were land grabbing and displacing natives from their ancestral land, threatening that such actions would be strongly opposed.