“We have 2-month-old babies, 6-month-old babies, babies in the bellies turned from their mother’s womb and slaughtered like animals, like chickens,” she continued. “We are here today to beg the U.S. government and for the world to hear our story.” By the time the series of Fulani attacks occurred this past spring, the Adara tribe had already been pushed into a state of uncertainty. Magaji said last May that the Kaduna government passed a measure to split the Adara chiefdom and create a Fulani Muslim emirate in Kajuru.

The Adara community detested such a proposal. Magaji added that the Adara chief was kidnapped last Oct. 19 and murdered about a week later even though a ransom was paid for his release. “It was when the chief died that the elders in our land realized that the governor … [said that] Adara Christians are now under a Muslim Hausa-Fulani emirate,” she explained. “It is so ridiculous that it was already signed into law and nobody knew about it. For a governor to make that kind of law in the first place without the people of the land knowing about it is illegal and unjust.”

Magaji said that the elders of her community tried to pressure the government but “nobody would listen.” “When they realized that nobody was going to listen to them, they took the matter to court,” she explained. “A week after the civil case started in court, my dad and eight other elders were arrested and thrown into prison for no reason.” Magaji said the state government blamed the Adara elders for the death of 66 Fulani herdsmen that were killed in February 2019.

“The problem we have with the statement the governor made is that on the 10th of February, 11 Adarra people were killed,” she said. “The government didn’t say anything about it even when the leaders of the community officially made statements.”… Magaji fears that the Adara tribe will end up going “extinct.”