Nigeria: Fulani Islamists Claim to be Victims Amid Ongoing Attacks on Christian Villages

A Fulani advocacy group has accused Christian militia members of using drones to surveil Fulani settlements in Plateau State, amid a continuing wave of Fulani Islamist attacks on Christian farming communities across the region. Concerned Fulani in Plateau (CFP), in a statement issued Sunday, condemned what it called unauthorized drone surveillance of Fulani settlements in Barkin Ladi, Riyom, and Bokkos local government areas.

Fulani militants have killed more Christians in Nigeria than Boko Haram, the Islamic State West Africa Province (ISWAP), and Jama’at Nusrat al-Islam wal-Muslimin (JNIM) combined. They frequently raid Christian villages in large numbers using AK-47s, and there have been increasing reports of drone use and coordinated attacks across multiple locations.

Christian villages generally have little or no security, often relying only on a handful of volunteer watchmen, called “vigilantes,” armed with homemade muskets. On the rare occasions when Christians manage to kill an attacker, the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), the most prominent Fulani advocacy group, publicly portrays the herders as victims. Founded in 1979 with backing from the Sultan of Sokoto and several northern emirs, the national organization representing cattle herders counts former President Muhammadu Buhari as a life patron.

MACBAN itself has faced accusations of financing and shielding the militants responsible for attacks on Christian communities. A 2025 peer-reviewed study by researchers at Texas Southern University concluded that Fulani militants’ access to sophisticated weapons “is not surprising because they are financially supported by cattle owners through” MACBAN.

In February 2026, the U.S. Congress introduced the Nigeria Religious Freedom and Accountability Act (H.R. 7457), which would designate MACBAN and Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore as Entities of Particular Concern under the Global Magnitsky framework and subject them to U.S. sanctions over alleged ties to religiously motivated killings of Christians. A companion measure, House Resolution 860, makes the same recommendation.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom, in a May 2026 report, estimated that 30,000 armed Fulani militants operate across Nigeria and noted “growing scrutiny” of MACBAN over accusations from Christian leaders that the group failed to stop militant violence and land invasions carried out by armed herders. MACBAN has denied the allegations. Responding to the report, the association said, “We do not support, condone, harbor, finance, or protect any form of criminality, extremism or violence.”

MACBAN National President Baba Ngelzarma called the USCIRF’s 30,000-militant estimate misleading, saying criminal elements “do not, and will never, represent the 14.5 million peaceful Fulani citizens” in Nigeria, and argued that ordinary Fulani pastoralists are themselves frequent victims of cattle rustling, kidnapping, and retaliatory attacks.

CFP coordinator Umar Jouro said the group had identified a Berom TikTok user, Gabriel G. Mex, who filmed and published aerial footage of the Mahanga settlement in Riyom Local Government Area on July 16 and 17, 2026, highlighting residents’ homes, cattle, and the community’s location. Jouro said the group believed the footage was collected as pre-attack reconnaissance, alleging that the user was “working closely with some Berom Militia groups, intending to attack the communities.”

CFP argued the filming may violate constitutional privacy protections under Section 37 of Nigeria’s 1999 Constitution and the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023, and called on the Plateau State government, the Nigerian Civil Aviation Authority, the Nigeria Data Protection Commission, and security agencies to investigate.

Over the past seven months, MACBAN has repeatedly alleged that Fulani herders were attacked or killed by a “Berom Militia.” BYM denies that any such militia exists, arguing that if it did, Fulani attacks on Berom communities could not have continued at their current pace, and typically attributes the violence in these cases to Fulani militants themselves.

On January 11, MACBAN alleged Berom youths shot and poisoned cattle in Heipang and Kwi; BYM described the claim as a pretext MACBAN “continuously” uses ahead of its own attacks on Berom communities.

The clearest direct discrepancy in framing came after a June 29-30 incident in Gyel District, Jos South LGA. MACBAN said more than 40 gunmen ambushed herders around the Gero-Rafin Bauna axis, and Daily Trust reported the group’s account naming three dead, Haruna Hassan, 30; Inusa Usman, 34; and Ismaila Muhammad, 44, describing them as tending cattle when they were attacked. BYM gave a fundamentally different account of the same incident.

Tengwong said more than 40 armed attackers had instead raided a mining site at Nyango, in the same district, killing three miners and injuring two, and that “local vigilante members, upon a pressing call from the scene of the terror, mobilized and swiftly swung into action to defend the vulnerable miners… In the ensuing repel, four of the attacking marauders and/or terrorists were neutralized.”

Under BYM’s account, the Fulani dead were not herders ambushed while grazing but attackers killed while raiding a mining community, the inverse of MACBAN’s framing, and the one case in this dispute where a Christian-side group has explicitly claimed to have killed Fulani attackers in the course of repelling an assault.

The Fulani have claimed that Christians are manufacturing weapons to kill Fulani. Nigerian military officials have identified illegal arms manufacturing as a central driver of the violence; however, their most detailed on-the-record account points to Fulani militias as the primary buyers rather than Berom groups.

Brigadier General Selong Sule, chief of staff of Operation Enduring Peace, told a briefing of defense correspondents in Jos that suspects arrested at illegal weapon-manufacturing sites in Plateau State had confessed to selling locally fabricated firearms to Fulani militias “because they paid more” than other buyers.” Some of the suspects claimed they manufactured weapons for members of their communities to defend themselves,” Sule said. “However, some later confessed that they also sold these weapons to Fulani militias because they paid more.”

Sule’s statement follows a string of factory raids across Plateau State. Troops arrested two suspects and recovered two AK-47 rifles and a G3 rifle at a fabrication site in Gwandanu Village, Langtang North LGA, on April 22, 2026. On May 7, a raid on two more sites in Vom, Jos South LGA, led to five arrests and the recovery of nine fabricated AK-47 rifles, a pistol, and industrial fabrication equipment.

One secondary outlet, citing anonymous security sources, described the Vom suspects as “suspected Berom militia members,” a characterization not present in the military’s own account of the same arrests. MURIC, a Muslim advocacy group, has gone further, describing Plateau gun manufacturers in its public statements as “Christian terrorists,” a label that rests on the group’s own framing rather than on any military or police identification.

The Fulani-side claims come as attacks on Christian communities in the same local government areas have continued. On July 11-12, armed bandits killed nine members of a single family in Kum and Wereng-Camp, Riyom LGA. On July 4-5, coordinated attacks on Ta-Hoss, Sabon Layi, and Kwi left six dead. Data compiled by BYM shows at least 121 people killed across Barkin Ladi, Riyom, Bassa, Jos South, and Pankshin LGAs between May and July 11, 2026.