Victims of recent armed attacks in Plateau State are expressing their heartfelt appreciation to Senator Oluremi Tinubu, the First Lady, for her generous donation of N500 million aimed at aiding their recovery.

Leaders of 7,000 residents displaced by recent attacks in the Daffo district of Bokkos Local Government Area on Sunday described the donation as unprecedented.

“We are very delighted with the efforts of the First Lady,” said Mr. Danlami Asado, the Deputy Chairman of the Daffo Mangai Community Development Association. “She did something we have never seen before,” said Asado in Daffo during a meeting of community members aimed at ensuring the community’s allocation gets to the right beneficiaries.

“We pray for good health and open doors for more of such interventions,” said Asado to reporters, calling for the deployment of security forces to enable the displaced villagers return to their homes.

“Our roads are not safe, we can’t access our homes and farms. Just today, a young lady was attacked on her way to the town,” he said.

“Even four days ago, two people were killed and three others injured in another attack in this village. We need more security deployments to enable us return to our homes and cultivate our farms. As I speak to you, there are thousands of our people that have been displaced since 2018 and cannot return to their homes in places like Wereng, Hottom and Mandung. Even to access our farms sometimes we have to be accompanied by securities otherwise you will not return,” he noted.

While the meeting was ongoing at midday in the town, a young schoolgirl walking from a nearby village to the town was brutally attacked and injured on the head.

“He first ordered me to stop and said your own has finished today I must kill you and started to race toward me with a big stick in his hand,” said Miss Uhoman Moses who identified the attacker a Fulani herder.

“There was no one there but me and him so I started running as he chased me down the road. When he caught up with me, he hit me on the head and I fell to the ground. He tried to hit me again and I blocked it with my hand and the stick fell far from him. I quickly got up and started screaming and running and then he ran into the bushes,” Miss Moses recalled.

The senior student of the Government Secondary School Daffo was the latest victim of such attacks in the community credited to Fulani herders.

Just on last Tuesday while the First Lady Senator Tinubu was having a meeting with the Governor of Plateau State, Caleb Mutfwang at the Government House in Jos where she presented a draft cheque of N500million as donation to victims of previous attacks, two people were killed and three others injured in an evening attack in Daffo town.

One of the injured victims, Mr. Mawiyau Emmanuel whose son was killed in the attack told our correspondent that eight armed Fulani militants opened fire on some residents at 7:30pm, and laid ambush for him and his son as they attempted to respond. Both Emmanuel and his son were members of a local vigilante unit. They were racing to rescue one of their colleagues who was killed in the initial shooting, he said.

“We didn’t know they had taken over the roads until they opened fire on us killing my son and injuring me on the neck and hand,” he said.

Leader of the local vigilante group, Mafwalal Abafaras appealed to government to equip and motivate volunteers to complement the conventional securities in safeguarding communities.