Armed Bandits Destroy Eight Hectares of Farmland in Plateau State Village

Suspected Fulani bandits invaded the farming community of Rewienku village in Irigwe Chiefdom, Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State, on Wednesday night, firing intermittently as they moved through the settlement and systematically destroying more than eight hectares of cultivated farmland. No crops were spared. No farm was left untouched.

Danjuma Dickson Auta, National Secretary of the Irigwe Development Association, confirmed the attack to reporters in Jos on Friday. He said the bandits were heavily armed and that the destruction was deliberate and thorough.

Eight hectares is not a small number. For a rural farming community where agriculture is the primary, and often only, source of income, losing that much cultivated land in a single night is not just an economic setback. It is an existential one. Planting season does not wait. The seeds are in the ground, the labor has been done, and now the harvest that was supposed to feed families and generate income through the rest of the year is gone. Auta said the affected farmers are still counting their losses.

That image, farmers walking through destroyed fields trying to calculate what they have lost, is one of the quieter devastations of the insecurity that has plagued Plateau State for years. It does not make headlines the way a massacre does. But it grinds communities down just as effectively, season after season, until people simply stop planting.

Auta called on security agencies and relevant authorities to act immediately and proactively to prevent further destruction in the area. He also urged the Plateau State government to increase security presence in remote farming communities, noting that these are the spaces most exposed and least protected.

The Plateau State Police Command confirmed the attacks and stated that an investigation has been opened into both the destruction of the farmlands and the killing of cows reported in the council area. SP Alfred Alabo, the Command's spokesperson, said in a statement on Friday that the Command has responded by intensifying enforcement of motorcycle movement restrictions in Barkin Ladi Local Government Area.

Commissioner of Police Bassey Ewah condemned the destruction of farmlands and the killing of livestock across several communities including Lokojoro, Nding, and Kasuwan Dankali in Barkin Ladi LGA, describing the incidents as direct threats to public safety and peace.

The motorcycle restriction is a recognizable security response in the Northeast and Middle Belt. Armed groups rely heavily on motorcycles for mobility, and limiting their movement has shown some effectiveness in disrupting rapid attack-and-retreat patterns. Whether it is sufficient for the scale of what is happening in Plateau's farming communities is a harder question.

Rewienku village is in mourning. The crops are gone. The bandits who destroyed them are still out there. And the farmers who woke up to ruined fields on Thursday morning have to make decisions about whether to replant, whether to stay, and whether any of it is worth the risk.

Those are not decisions anyone should have to make in 2026 because the state cannot protect a farm.

The investigation is ongoing. Suspects have not been identified or arrested. The community is waiting, and the planting season will not wait with them.