The Killings In Jos And The Government’s Continued Failure To Protect Nigerians

“The greatest danger to Nigeria today is the inaction of those who should serve and save it.”

– Olusegun Obasanjo

(Former President of Nigeria)

On the evening of March 29, 2026 -  Palm Sunday - gunmen stormed the Angwan Rukuba community in Jos North Local Government Area and opened fire on residents going about their normal activities.

At least 28 people were killed. More are dying in hospitals. In Maiduguri, on March 16, coordinated suicide bombings at a teaching hospital gate and two busy markets killed at least 27 people and injured 146 others. In Kwara State, on February 3, armed attackers invaded the villages of Woro and Nuku, bound the residents' hands, and executed them.

At least 162 people died. The Red Cross confirmed the number and the search for more bodies continued for days.

That is over 200 Nigerians killed in less than two months. And the question that demands an answer from every level of government is this: Who is protecting Nigerian lives?

Enough is Enough (EiE) Nigeria unequivocally condemns the killings in Jos, Plateau State, and extends its deepest condolences to the families of every life lost. We wish the injured a full and speedy recovery.

Section 14(2)(b) of the Nigerian Constitution is unambiguous: the security and welfare of the people shall be the primary purpose of government. Not a secondary obligation. Not a best-effort commitment. The primary purpose. By that constitutional standard, the Nigerian government is in default.

These attacks did not occur without warning. In Kwara, Amnesty International confirmed that armed groups had been sending written threats to the Woro community for more than five months before the massacre. The military had, in fact, recently conducted operations in the area. The attackers came anyway, and they had hours to carry out their executions before soldiers arrived. In Maiduguri, a city that serves as the headquarters of Nigeria's counter-insurgency operations, three devices detonated simultaneously in crowded civilian spaces during Ramadan. In Jos, a community with a documented history of recurring violence, was attacked again, in the same manner, with the same result.

This is not a crisis of isolated incidents. It is a crisis of governance, intelligence failures, inadequate civilian protection, and a security architecture that responds to mass death rather than preventing it.

Our Concerns
EiE Nigeria is deeply concerned that the government's response to mass violence has followed a predictable and insufficient pattern: presidential condemnation, announcement of deployments, promise of investigations and then silence, until the next attack. No perpetrators from previous attacks are publicly known to have been prosecuted. No security review has been made public. No accountability has followed. In fact, security agencies have publicly asked that perpetrators of these attacks be ‘forgiven’ and considered ‘prodigal sons’; this is ludicrous.

We are equally concerned that this cycle of violence and inaction is eroding public trust in the state's capacity and commitment to protect its citizens. When communities send warning letters to authorities for five months and are still massacred, the failure is not incidental. It is systemic. Impunity is not a neutral outcome. It is an incentive.

"Every time Nigerians are killed in this way, the government responds with condolences and the promise of an investigation. But investigations go nowhere, no one is held to account, and the attacks continue. At what point do we stop calling this a crisis and start calling it what this is - a complete government failure?" - Ufuoma Nnamdi-Udeh, Executive Director, EiE Nigeria

Our Demands
EiE Nigeria calls on the President of the Federal Republic and relevant state governments to act - not respond:

1. Protect civilians, not just react to their deaths. Where communities have identified threats and communicated them to authorities, there must be a mandatory, documented response protocol. Advance warning that goes unheeded is a governance failure, not a security limitation.
2. Prosecute perpetrators and publish the results. Investigations must be transparent, time-bound, and must result in prosecution. We call on the Attorney General of the Federation and state Attorneys General to publish the status of every announced investigation into mass violence. Nigerians deserve to know what has happened to previous promises of justice.
3. Account for intelligence failures. The National Security Adviser and the service chiefs must account publicly for how armed groups were able to plan and execute attacks of this scale - in Kwara after months of warnings, in Maiduguri at the heart of Nigeria's counter-insurgency operations, and in Jos, where patterns of violence are well established.
4. Review and reform the national security strategy. The current approach is producing insufficient results. The government must examine what structural adjustments are necessary, including civil-military coordination, community-based early warning systems, and the allocation of resources to prevention, not just response.
5. Protect affected communities immediately. A 48-hour curfew is a containment measure, not a protection strategy. Residents of Angwan Rukuba, Woro, and communities across the North-East deserve sustained security presence and a credible plan, not temporary deployments that recede when the news cycle moves on.

A government's legitimacy rests, in part, on its capacity to protect those it governs. Nigerians in Jos, in Maiduguri, in Kwara, and in every community living under the threat of violence are not statistics. They are citizens, and they are owed better than condolences and curfews.

EiE Nigeria will continue to monitor the government's response and will hold public institutions accountable to their constitutional obligations. We call on all Nigerians, wherever they are, to demand accountability. Silence in the face of preventable death is not neutrality. It is complicity.

God bless the people of Plateau State. God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria!

Akindeji Aromaye
Senior Media Associate, EiE Nigeria 

×