Who are the Fulani elders who paid eight Fulani herdsmen N200,000 each to eliminate an elderly missionary, his wife and children, because, according to them, the reverend gentleman, Bayo Famounure, was always always preaching against their deadly activities?
This is the puzzle facing the Plateau State Police Command as two of the alleged armed robbers and assasins made their startling revelations.
On the night of 5th May, 2020, Rev. Canon Bayo James Famonure, the founder of Agape Mission Messiah College, Gana Ropp, in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area (LGA) of Plateau State, was attacked and left for dead.
Barkin Ladi LGA, like some parts of The Plateau, has been the hotbed of fatal herdsmen attack, often leading to the sack of whole communities, which are allegedly taken over by the herdsmen.
But now, two of the suspects, Audu Adamu and Muhammad Sale, arrested in one of the Plateau forests by a combined team of security forces, are telling the story of their failed assassination bid, which was made to look like armed robbery attack.
In their confession at the State Police Headquarters, Adamu, who spoke for the two, disclosed that some of their elders employed them to kill the Reverend.
His words: “We were paid N200,000 each to kill the pastor by some of our elders because he hates us so much and was always preaching against us.
“He used every opportunity to talk bad against us and made the people to turn against us whenever we go out to graze our cattle. He would tell the people not to allow us to graze on their lands because we are evil people.
“So our elders called us and told us that we should kill him and members of his family but that we should make it look as if it was an armed robbery attack. Our elders were the ones who gave us the guns we used. We also had machetes and other weapons with us.
“On the day we went to his house, he was in one room praying when we forced the door open. We told him to give us money and other valuables in the house but he told us that he did not have any money in the house. He was still praying when I shot him in the head and another of our members shot him in the leg.
“He fell to the ground and remained still, so we thought that he was dead. We went into another room and found his wife also praying and trying to send a text message and Sale shot her in the back and leg and she also fell down.
“We began searching other rooms and found his son hiding in the bathroom and we shot him also. To make it look like it was armed robbery like our elders told us, we began searching the house where we found small cash.
“We also took some phones and laptops we found but while we were still searching for other things, we heard sirens and we knew that the police were coming, so we escaped by scaling the fence of the compound into the bush.
“When we got to our elders, we told them that we had killed the man and his family and they were very happy with us but the next day, we heard that they did not die. Our elders told us to hide in the bushes and wait for another opportunity to go after them.
“Some of us left Plateau and went to other places to cool down but myself and Sale decided to hide in the bushes because of our cattle and family.
“I don’t know how the police and soldiers managed to find us because they just came and arrested us. The man hates us so much and our people believed that they deserve to die. I don’t know how they all managed to survive.”