Masquerades storm Church in Northern state of Plateau, beat pastor, worshipers
*Plateau State Command confirms incident, says peace restored
By KEMI KASUMU
Like never unheard before, masquerades invaded a Church during service on Sunday in Shikal, Lantang South Local Government Area of Plateau State, North Central Nigeria, disrupting worship session and flogging the officiating pastor.
Worshippers of the unnamed church were also flogged leading them to run helter skelter, while properties of the worship centre were vandalized, reportedly.
The masquerades were also said to have particularly destroyed the Church’s musical equipment during the ‘unfortunate’ invasion.
According to sources in a media report, the church members were shocked and surprised by the action of the masquerades, saying that members did not take any counter-offensive action, but gathered to salvage what was left of their properties by the invaders.
The source explained, “Elders of the village are making efforts to get to the root of the matter in order to restore normalcy.”
The root course of the masquerade invasion of church in the North Central community could not be determined as at the time of filing this report.
However, the Plateau State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), DSP Alfred Alabo, confirmed the incident to The DEFENDER Sunday evening and disclosed the actions police had taken.
The Plateau Police Command’s Spokesman said, “For now what we can say is that, I am still waiting for my DPO to gather all the information and give to me. But he said some masquerades invaded a church and that they are in police station, as we speak, trying to ascertain the actual fact of the case. May be by then, I will be able to give you the real truth of what happened.
“But the truth I can tell you now is that something like that happened and we have already restored calm in the area. The actual reason the incident happened, investigation will have to reveal it. So, I cannot say much on it for now but, actually, it was true that such thing happened and the police has restored normalcy in the area because the Area Commander and the DPO have taken charge of the situation.”
