Plateau: Gov. Mutfwang to hold Wyclef, M.I concert as death toll in killer herdsmen bloodshed hits 162

Governor Caleb Mutfwang on Tuesday vowed to proceed with a planned Yule jam amidst rising fatalities from the weekend-long assault on Plateau communities.

Acoording to Peoples Gazette the governor said that the deadly rampage won’t alter his government’s schedules because it did not affect the state capital Jos. 

The governor’s refusal to readjust schedules for his December 31 evening out with Haitian musician Wyclef Jean came as responders informed Peoples Gazette that fatalities in killer herdsmen violence on rural dwellers in his state had risen to 162. 

The updated figures came a day after reports that residents were killed in coordinated attacks across over a dozen villages in the central Nigerian state. Most of the victims were women and children, all targeted by rampaging pastoralists on a protracted mission to dislodge ancestral descendants and seize control of lush plains and tributaries filling the balmy region. 

“We now have 162 bodies from all the places that local security people searched,” a volunteer medical worker Maria Mwantok told The Gazette shortly before noon on Tuesday. “Many people in Bokkos fled into nearby woods with gunshot wounds where they later bled to death.” 

Scores of people were left critically injured in the attacks, which began Saturday afternoon and lasted till Sunday midnight in at least 15 villages across three local government areas — Bokkos, Barkin Ladi and Mangu. 

As the attacks were underway, the governor posted a video on his X (formerly Twitter) handle announcing December 31 and January 1 for an upcoming party that would feature Wyclef and M.I. Abaga, a Nigerian entertainer from Plateau. M.I lamented the violence and prayed for victims in an X post on Monday.