TERRORISM: 125 killed in Benue and Plateau States as 4800 villagers have already fled their homes
Approximately 4,800 people have fled their homes in Plateau and Benue States following the deadly attacks last Sunday, according to a government spokesperson.
© -/AFP or licensors Internally displaced women and children gather at a camp in the Garga Village in Plateau state on April 12, 2022.
Groups of gunmen on motorcycles overran five villages of Plateau state shooting people in every direction and burning houses during the weekend, killing more than 100 people. People fled from Kyaram, Gyambau, Dungur, Kukawa and Shuwaka where the assaults took place and Nneka Ikem Anibeze, spokesperson for the Minister of Humanitarian Affairs said the majority of the displaced are women and children.
Nigeria's Minister of Information declared, that these armed criminal gangs are working with Islamist extremist rebels who have been spreading terror for the last decade in the North of the country. Confirming for the first a collaboration that security analysts have warned of.
Acting likewise, these "bandits" are conducting mass abductions from schools, looting villages, and killing those who resist or whose families cannot pay the ransom.
Although President Muhammadu Buhari has reacted by vowing "no mercy" for these criminals, criticism is mounting as insecurity increases. Already the National Council of States is meeting in Abuja today in reaction to the spate of insecurity in the North Central and Northwest zones.
A devastated Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has again lamented the gruesome murder of 23 persons in fresh attacks on two communities by the invading Fulani herdsmen on Monday night.
Consequently, the Governor directed his people to rise to defend themselves forthwith.
No fewer than 8 persons were mowed down on Monday night by Fulani herdsmen who invaded Mbadwem in Guma local government area and 15 in Tiortyu in Tarka local government area of Benue state.
Scores of others were injured and are receiving treatment in an unnamed hospital in the state.
An angry Ortom who could not hide his anger said that “it is becoming increasingly glaring every day that my people are now an endangered specie and so we can no longer wait for help from anywhere. My people will have to rise up to the occasion to defend themselves and their heritage against the Fulani army of occupation.”
He added: “We are law-abiding citizens. We have cried for help against these invaders but nothing is forthcoming. We are left alone and it looks like it is a deliberate strategy. Now we have only one option; to defend ourselves or get extinct. This is a case for our survival.
“We have been accommodating of other people in our land but our hospitality is misconstrued as weakness. We are not a conquered people. We will never be. We are free-born citizens of Nigeria”, the Governor declared.
Governor Ortom nevertheless enjoined security operatives to do more in crime prevention and protection of lives and property in the land just as he urged the people to cooperate with security agencies to flush out the undesirable elements in the society.
The state government, he said, will not shy away from its commitment to provide welfare and security for the citizens.
Former Chief Press Secretary to the Benue state Governor and 2023 governorship aspirant, Mr. Terver Akase Wednesday lamented that the President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration has abandoned the people of the state to be slaughtered like animals by Fulani herders. He said the presidency has not deemed it necessary to sympathize with the people of Benue State, and we are wondering; is Benue no longer part of this country? Why has the Federal Government chosen to abandon the people of the state?”
Mr. Akase who spoke to journalists in Makurdi on the renewed attacks in the state wondered why the Presidency was quick to sympathize with other states affected by violence but had not issued a single statement to sympathize with the government and people of Benue State after coordinated attacks by herdsmen in Guma, Logo, and Tarka which led to the killing of 25 innocent persons.
He said: “Just this morning, we read a statement from the presidency sympathizing with the people of Plateau State, which is the right thing to do. We also sympathize with the people of Plateau State.
He described the silence of the Presidency over the killings in Benue as a betrayal of the people’s trust and votes which brought President Buhari to power in 2015 and retained him in 2019.
“Mr President owes us an explanation. Benue voted for him in 2015 and 2019. That means Benue people love Mr. President. Our people deserve to be protected too, and if anything is happening here and the Federal Government looks the other way then we feel like orphans.”
The former Chief Press Secretary urged the Presidency to refrain from treating Benue like a people who are only useful during elections, stressing that the state also deserved to be protected and assisted to rise from the ruins of sustained herders attacks, the same way the North East was being assisted to overcome the damage by Boko Haram.
Courtesy Vanguard Newspapers and Daily Post