On April 5, 2021, a group of local militants in Bonta, a town in the Konshinsha Local Government Area of Nigeria’s northwestern Benue State, waylaid and killed some soldiers coming from Okpute, a neighbouring community in the Oju Local Government Area of the state. “The soldiers claimed they came for peace but they were only fuelling the war,” said Gungul Samuel, a local familiar with the activities of the militants. Bonta residents we interviewed believed they were attacked with the ammunition the soldiers supplied to the Igede militants in Oju. They mounted a roadblock in Bonta just as the Igede militants had done in Okpute. The communal war got the attention of the state government, necessitating the intervention of the police and soldiers, 12 of whom were murdered by the Bonta Boys.

Source: The Guardian May 16, 2022 16:22 UTC