They Waited for the Bus Door to Open at Dungus Junction. Nine Died on the Road to Jos, Four More Are Named in Mangu, and the Conductor, Four Days Into the Job, Hid While They Emptied His Pockets.
Nine died when gunmen fired on a bus at Dungus Junction, Kuru, on Sunday night. Four more are named in Mangu. The conductor, four days into the job, hid while they took his phone.
The bus stopped at Dungus Junction at about twenty to ten on Sunday night to let five people off. The driver climbed down to collect their fares. That is when the shooting started.
Nasiru Garba was in the front of the bus. He was the conductor, and it was his fourth day on the job. The gunmen fired on the five in the road and then on the people still in their seats. Garba bent down. When it stopped, everyone who had stepped off, everyone still on the bus, and the driver were dead. The attackers opened the front door, searched him, took his money and the phone he had charging, and said nothing. He did not look at their faces. That is his account, given to Vanguard the next day.
Eight passengers and the driver are dead. Some died on the roadside at Kuru, in Jos South, on the last stretch of road into the Plateau State capital. Some died later in hospital. One of them belonged to Operation Rainbow, the state's own community security outfit. None of the reports we have seen names the others.
By Tuesday the week's count across Plateau State stood at twenty, and the Inspector General of Police was due at Jos Airport at half past nine the next morning.
