A group of armed men attacked a Christian gathering in Mubi, Adamawa State. The victims had assembled in a private house to mourn Simeon Asor, an Igbo trader who had been shot dead the previous night at the Good Will Hotel. As the mourners organised the repatriation of the body to their home state of Anambra, two gunmen on a motorcycle arrived at the compound, shot dead the security guard at the gate, and entered the hall where they opened fire on the defenceless crowd with Kalashnikov rifles, chanting “God is great” as they shot. At least 17 people were killed and about 15 others wounded in the attack.
6 Jan 2012 · Mubi, Mubi North, Adamawa
Deaths
17
Injured
15
Kidnapped
0
Total casualties
32
Perpetrators
Boko Haram
Response
The Adamawa State Government imposed a dusk‑to‑dawn curfew on major towns across the state, including Mubi, Numan, Michika and Gombi. Governor Murtala Nyako announced a ₦25 million reward for information leading to the arrest of the perpetrators.
Displacement
0
Socioeconomic drivers
The massacre was a direct enforcement of Boko Haram‘s three‑day ultimatum issued on 1 January 2012, which gave Christians in northern Nigeria three days to leave the region or face death. The attack was the second in a “double‑tap” sequence: the initial murder of five Igbo traders at the Good Will Hotel on the night of 5 January was followed by the massacre of the mourners who had gathered to plan the burial of one of the victims. The selection of Mubi, a town not covered by President Goodluck Jonathan’s state of emergency declaration of 31 December 2011, was a deliberate choice to demonstrate that the emergency measures had failed to contain the insurgency.
Trajectory
The attack was the culmination of a wave of ultimatum‑enforcement violence that forced thousands of Igbos and other southerners to flee northern Nigeria. The massacre also prefigured the devastating “Kano Blitz” of 20 January 2012, in which Boko Haram launched coordinated suicide bombings and shootings across Kano city, killing over 185 people.
Cycle notes
The Mubi funeral massacre directly echoed the Christmas Day 2011 Madalla church bombing (37 killed) and the 5 January 2012 Gombe church attack (9 killed). The tactic of striking a mourning gathering – a “funeral massacre” – had been used by Boko Haram in the past and would be repeated in later attacks on burial ceremonies. The targeting of Igbo traders also recalled the pre‑Biafran pogroms of 1966, in which thousands of Igbos were killed in northern Nigeria. The government‘s reactive response – a curfew and a cash reward – mirrored earlier measures and failed to prevent the violence that followed.
Pattern
Sectarian violence
Related — Communal Violence
Ethnic militia attacked returning Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) in Tse Ajogo community, Wukari LGA, Taraba State, killing 17 people and injuring 8 others.
A violent civilian protest erupted in Kano after a commercial motorcyclist, Mustapha Sani, was shot dead by soldiers at a military checkpoint outside a bus terminus. The soldiers alleged that the rider had failed to stop for a routine search. In response, around 100 protesters, primarily commercial motorcyclists and local youths, took over the Silver Jubilee Roundabout (also known as Jubilee Square) in the city centre. The mob marched through the streets, burned tyres, and pelted soldiers with stones, demanding the dismantling of all military checkpoints in the city. The soldiers on duty drove away in two military vans to avoid further clashes, making no attempt to stop the protesters.
A group of unidentified assailants broke into the rented quarters of three North Korean doctors in the Sabon Gari (“strangers’ quarter”) area of Potiskum, Yobe State. Using machetes, the attackers killed the three men inside their home. Two of the victims had their throats slit, while the third was beheaded. The assailants also ransacked the residence, stealing valuables and other property. The victims were identified as Kim In-chol, Kim Yong-su, and Kim Mun-chol, all medical doctors attached to the Potiskum General Hospital under a bilateral technical aid agreement between the Yobe State Government and the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK). The victims had worked in Yobe State since 2005 without incident and had no security guards at their residence. The attack occurred just two days after nine female health workers were killed in Kano, heightening fears of a systematic campaign against healthcare personnel.