Gunmen have again struck in Plateau State's Bassa Local Government Area, killing 22-year-old herder Aliyu Abdulrazak and making off with 15 cattle in the Izovo community of Miango district. The attack happened around 3 pm on Sunday while the herders were grazing, according to Ya'u Idris, chairman of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) in Bassa. Five cows were also shot dead before the attackers dumped Abdulrazak's body in a shallow grave.
The incident is the second within 24 hours around the same village; the previous day unknown gunmen killed eight cattle. Personnel from Operation Enduring Peace joined MACBAN members to recover the corpse, and the sector commander as well as the executive chairman of Bassa witnessed the burial. State MACBAN chairman Ibrahim Yusuf Babayo labelled the killing "senseless," insisting the herders had committed no offence. Danjuma Dickson Auta, former National Secretary of the Irigwe Development Association, confirmed the incident but denied his people were involved, saying the crime was aimed at tarnishing their image. Captain Polycarp Oteh, spokesperson for Operation Enduring Peace, had yet to respond to enquiries.
Aliyu Abdulrazak was not collateral damage in a clash; he was deliberately hunted while grazing and dumped in a shallow grave, a pattern that says the attackers wanted both the cattle and the terror.
The quick denial by the Irigwe Development Association matters because Bassa has seen cycles of herder-farmer violence where rustling is often framed as revenge or self-defence. By dissociating themselves within hours, the Irigwe leaders signal fear that locals could face collective punishment, a reminder that cattle raids here are rarely just about livestock—they reorder communal blame and sharpen ethnic fault lines.
For Plateau families who rely on open grazing, the message is stark: sending a 22-year-old out with cows now carries a real risk of never seeing him again, and compensation is unlikely because the rustled animals finance the next round of guns. Every unrecovered herd deepens the poverty trap that fuels recruitment into militias on all sides.
This back-to-back strike fits a wider plateau trend where gunmen hit the same corridor inside 24 hours, confident that security sweeps will arrive just in time to count bodies rather than prevent them.
