Youths demand an end to open grazing after bandits kill two Plateau instructors.

Two teachers were slain when bandits stormed a secondary school in the Riyom Local Government Area of Plateau State.

According to information obtained, the fatalities were a young married couple who worked as teachers at the BECO Comprehensive Secondary school in the municipal district’s Kwi hamlet.

The event, according to eyewitnesses, occurred on Monday after school at a meeting to compile student results for distribution on Friday, August 18, during their “Speech and Prize Giving Day,” in accordance with the school’s calendar.

Moses Gwott, a local youth leader, told The PUNCH in Jos, Nigeria, on Tuesday that the bandits also injured several teachers, including the vice principal of the institution.

Gwott said, “It was on Monday around 3:00 pm that the bandits came into the school Compound with their cattles, and interrupted the Staff meeting.The staff had asked the bandits who were obviously  Fulani to get their cows out of the school environment. But instead of complying, they brought out their arms and   opened gunfire at the teachers killing two teachers.”

In a statement on Tuesday, Rwang Tengwong, the national publicity secretary of the Berom Youths Moulders Association, also acknowledged the attack and urged the government to enact a ban on open grazing in the localities to prevent such incidents.

“The Berom Youths Moulder-Association-BYM is, again, saddened over the invasion of BECO Comprehensive School Kwi, where two staff, Mr and Mrs Rwang Danladi are reportedly shot dead and  one Mr Dalyop Emmanuel Ibrahim, the Vice Principal of the School seriously injured by some known fulani  armed men  alongside suspected Bandits elements at about 3:00pm of Monday, 14th August, 2023.

“This resulted to the death of recently wedded couples, Rwang Danladi and wife, Mrs Sandra Rwang Danladi, who are the staff of the school while Mr Dalyop Emmanuel Ibrahim who is the Vice Principal of the institution sustained serious injury and is receiving medical treatment at the Jos University Teaching Hospital-JUTH.

“The Berom Youth Moulder-Association, BYM under the leadership of Solomon Dalyop Mwantiri, Esq notes with concern how these Terrorists from Fass and Mahanga now move freely with arms and graze on farmlands, intimidating locals at nearby Communities.

Fass and Mahanga as well as Guava have become enclaves of terrorists, who carry out all sorts of coordinated attacks on villages and Communities in Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Bokkos, Mangu, Jos South and even beyond the state.

“We therefore call on government to ban open grazing in Plateau state since grazing has become a ploy to continue unleashing havock on human lives and property.

“We also call on security operatives to, as a matter of urgency, raid the aforementioned settlement formed by way of forceful occupation after uprooting the aboriginals therefrom.  This is necessary in order to get rid of both the terrorist and criminal elements that have firmly defied law and order.

“BYM calls on Government to declare Fulani Militias as terrorists so as to be treated as such.”

When our correspondent called Alfred Alabo, the state’s police public relations officer, to request a statement about the incident, calls over to his phone line indicated that it was off.