By Ken Afor
The brutal killing of more than 200 individuals in rural areas of Plateau State by savage attackers has persistently garnered both national and global focus, with the most recent acknowledgement coming from Pope Francis.
The Pope, in a post shared via his X account, formerly known as Twitter, called on concerned global citizens to remember Nigeria in their prayers and pray to God to free the West African country from horrors.
Pope Francis also asked the citizens to pray for those who died in an oil tanker explosion in Liberia where more than 40 people died.
“Let us pray together for the victims of the severe violence in Nigeria’s Plateau State. May God free Nigeria from these horrors! Let us also pray for those who lost their lives in the explosion of a tanker truck in Liberia,” the Pope said on Sunday.
The 87-year-old Argentine pontiff also extended his prayer for “people who suffer because of war: the martyred Ukrainian people, the Palestinian and Israeli peoples, the Sudanese people, the martyred Rohingya, and many others. May those with a stake in these conflicts listen to the voice of their conscience”.
It would be recalled on Christmas eve, December 24, 2023, communities in the Bokkos and Barkin-Ladi Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the Plateau State were subjected to horrifying simultaneous attacks by malevolent assailants.
The attacks have so far claimed over 200 lives with hundreds of houses and farmlands burnt. That the assailants were not repelled by security agents irked many Nigerians.
The government and military in their usual manner expressed their condemnation of the attack and made a series of promises following their highly publicized visits to the state. Catholic Diocese of Sokoto
However, prominent figures in Northern Nigeria, such as Bishop Matthew Hassan-Kukah have criticized the government and military for their inability to safeguard the people on the Plateau, who are enduring repeated acts of aggression from marauders.
