There are moments when a community grows so weary of being misunderstood that it must stop and speak. For the Mwaghavul Development Association (MDA), that moment has arrived. The association, which represents a people who have lived for generations in the hills and plains of Mangu and surrounding areas of Plateau State, has heard whispers and accusations that cut deep. It has been said that the MDA runs a militia, that it works hand in glove with Nigeria’s security agencies, specifically the Department of State Services (DSS), to attack and terrorize Fulani residents in their land. Those words have now been met with a firm, pained denial. Deacon Bulus Dabit, the association’s national president, stood before the media and made it clear that the allegations are not only false but deeply wounding. They are, he says, a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of a community that has itself been bloodied and broken by repeated attacks. For months, the Mwaghavul people have buried their dead. They have comforted widows, held the hands of orphans, and walked behind caskets far too often. And now, after all that grief, they find themselves accused of being the aggressors. It is an accusation they reject with every fiber of their being. This denial is not the defensiveness of the guilty; it is the outrage of the victim who has been unfairly blamed. The association’s response should be understood in that light: as a people’s desperate attempt to set the record straight, to stop being cast as villains in a narrative where they have been the ones weeping at funerals. It is not easy to remain calm when your community has been slaughtered, and then to hear that you are the one holding the knife. Yet the Mwaghavul Development Association chose to answer with words, not violence, and that choice alone says something about who they really are.
The most painful of the allegations is the one that suggests the Mwaghavul Development Association has secretly collaborated with the DSS to unleash violence on Fulani communities. Deacon Dabit did not mince words when he addressed this issue. He dismissed the claim as baseless and unacceptable, pointing out that the DSS is a national security institution that operates within the boundaries of the law and within the land for everyone’s protection. “We are not the ones engaging the bandits; they are,” he said. This is not a technicality or a clever legal dodge. It is a fundamental rejection of a story that turns the victims into conspirators. For the Mwaghavul, being accused of using state security agencies against their neighbors feels like another layer of injury. It suggests that their suffering, the funerals, the destroyed homes, and the orphaned children, are all part of some hidden plot. The president challenged anyone who believes the accusation to come forward and prove it. He did not hide behind vague denials. He asked for evidence. And he did so with the confidence of a leader who knows that no such evidence exists. This matters because trust in security forces is already fragile in conflict-prone communities. To suggest that an embattled indigenous group is secretly directing security agencies is to poison that trust even further. It endangers the lives of Mwaghavul people by making them targets of reprisal attacks. It also trivializes the real work of security agents who are trying to keep vulnerable communities safe. The allegation, in short, is not just an insult to the Mwaghavul Development Association; it is a threat to the fragile peace that everyone claims to want. When a people are accused of being informants and collaborators, their neighbors look at them differently. Even old friendships can turn into suspicion. That is why Deacon Dabit’s voice carried so much frustration. He knows that once a story like this is planted, it is very hard to uproot.
Then there is the strange story about drones. The Fulani group that made the accusations reportedly claimed that they were being monitored by drones sent by the Mwaghavul community. Again, Deacon Dabit shook his head. He said plainly that the association does not use drones. The flying objects that people have seen, he explained, likely belong to security agencies who are observing the area and trying to keep the peace. “I’d like to believe they mistook military drones for private ones,” he said. “So when they see drones, they should know it’s the security agencies working.” There is a weary patience in that response. Instead of dismissing the observation entirely, he offered a reasonable explanation. In the same breath, he dealt with the more serious charge of maintaining a militia. The claim, he said, is a figment of their imagination and a deliberate attempt to tarnish the image of the Mwaghavul people. He acknowledged that his people have the right to defend themselves when necessary. That right is guaranteed by the Nigerian constitution. But he made a crucial distinction between self-defense and organizing a militia. “We don’t need to have a militia to accomplish this,” he insisted. “It is completely wrong to portray us as a militia in this way.” This distinction is important. In an insecure environment, people naturally protect themselves, their families, and their property. That is not militancy; it is survival. Yet the word “militia” carries heavy meaning, and once attached to a community, it invites suspicion, military raids, and even more violence. The Mwaghavul Development Association wants the world to understand that they are not training paramilitary fighters. They are farmers, traders, teachers, and parents who are simply tired of being attacked and who refuse to surrender their right to exist in the place their ancestors called home. They have watched their villages burn, and yet they are the ones being accused of lighting the flames. That is a bitter irony that no amount of denial can sweeten.
Perhaps the most devastating part of the press conference was not the defense against allegations but the reminder of what the Mwaghavul have endured. Deacon Dabit told reporters that at least 750 natives from Mangu local government area alone had been killed between January and the present. He said the number was not exaggerated, because the dead were often buried in public. This is a detail that should stop every reader. He was not speaking about statistics; he was speaking about funerals. People gathered in villages, digging graves, lowering their loved ones into the ground, and doing so again and again. The scale of the loss is difficult to comprehend. It is more than two people every day. These were human beings with names, faces, dreams, and families. They were children who would never grow up, mothers who would never cook again, fathers who would never guide their children into adulthood, and old people who had only wanted to die peacefully after a long life. Instead they died violently, often in front of their relatives, and their bodies had to be committed to the earth quickly for fear of further attack. The Mwaghavul Development Association did not present these numbers as a weapon in a debate. They presented them as a burden of truth. And they challenged the Fulani group, which claims that its own people are being killed by natives, to provide proof. That challenge was not dismissive. It was an invitation to transparency. If the conflict is to be understood, there must be facts, not just accusations. The Mwaghavul have counted their dead in the open, in full view of the world, and they are asking others who claim victimhood to do the same. This is what accountability looks like from the ground: painful, blunt, and unflinching. It is easy to trade accusations from a safe distance. It is much harder to stand beside an open grave and still speak the truth.
Why do the attackers keep coming? Deacon Dabit did not leave that question unanswered. He looked at the bigger picture and saw a pattern that went beyond simple ethnic or religious hatred. The primary motive, he said, is land grabbing and the displacement of natives from their ancestral land. This is a familiar story in many conflict zones: the immediate violence is brutal, but the deeper purpose is to push people off their land so that others can take it over. The Mwaghavul lands are not just plots of earth; they are the graves of ancestors, the sites of historic ceremonies, the source of food for families, and the only world the people know. If you remove them from that land, you erase their identity. Deacon Dabit made it clear that the Mwaghavul will not accept this. He threatened, in the strongest terms, that such actions would be strongly opposed. The word “threatened” might sound aggressive, but in this context it is the language of people who have no more room to retreat. They are already cornered. They have already lost hundreds of lives. What more can they be expected to endure? When a community has nothing left to lose except its remaining generations, opposition becomes an act of love, not hatred. It is a promise to the ancestors and to the children that the land will not be surrendered without a fight. The Mwaghavul Development Association is not romantic about this. They know the dangers of resistance. But they also know that silence would mean consent, and they refuse to give that consent. Their opposition, they insist, is not a militia campaign. It is the collective will of a people who have decided that this land, this home, this history, is worth standing for. The attack on their character feels like the attack on their land. Both are attempts to erase them, and both will be met with the same unyielding resistance.
At the root of all this is a cry for recognition. The Mwaghavul people do not want to be feared, and they do not want to be hated. They want to be seen as human beings with a legitimate story. They want the Nigerian public to understand that their lives matter, that their deaths should not be dismissed, and that their defense against false accusations should not be seen as guilt. Deacon Dabit ended his remarks with a challenge that remains open for anyone with evidence. If you believe the Mwaghavul Development Association has a militia, if you believe it collaborates with the DSS to terrorize Fulani, come forward and prove it. This is not the language of a people with secrets. It is the language of a people who have told the truth and are tired of being called liars. The conflict in Plateau State is deeply human. It is filled with grief, fear, suspicion, and anger. But it is also filled with a stubborn desire for peace, a peace that cannot be built on false accusations. The association’s statement is a plea for fairness, for justice, and for an honest accounting of what has happened and who is responsible. It is also a warning that the abuses of the past cannot be repeated. The Mwaghavul have buried too many of their people. They have mourned too long. They have seen their children displaced and their homes destroyed. And they have now been slandered on top of it all. But they are still standing, still speaking, still demanding that the world listen. Their words are not perfect. They are raw and angry and full of pain. But they are an invitation: look at us as we really are, not as the caricature that rumors have made of us. In that invitation lies the possibility of understanding, and in understanding, perhaps, the first step toward healing.