Despite the efforts by successive governments in Benue State to find solution to the clashes between farmers and suspected Fulani herdsmen, the bloody crisis have continued unabated. In fact, less than a week to the exit of the last government, over 100 persons, mostly women, children and the elderly, were slaughtered in villages and refugee camps located at Ukura, Gafa, Per and Tse-Gusa at Ukemgbiraghia Twarev Ward, in Logo local government area of the state, in one of the bloodiest attacks on Benue communities by the suspected herdsmen.
The attacked community, until that onslaught, hosted most refugees from previous offensives by the herdsmen. The incident was like a panorama, bidding the former administration farewell and welcoming the new governor, Samuel Ortom.
Meanwhile, the crisis has continued unabated since the coming of the present administration with over 40 persons killed, about 2,000 displaced and not less than 100 seriously injured. Houses and huts, farmland and food barns, economic trees and farmland and several valuables were also not spared by the rampaging herdsmen who were bent on occupying the ‘conquered communities’. Some of the communities that came under the Fulani include Adeke village at the outskirts of Makurdi the state capital, when suspected herdsmen, last July, besieged the community, shooting sporadically for over two hours. “The development forced many residents to flee through bush paths,” an eyewitness said. The then state Police Commissioner, Hyacinth Dagala, attributed the crisis to a squabble between some Tiv locals and Fulani herders in the community. Efforts to stem the protracted crisis claimed the life of Assistant Superintendent of Police , ASP, Baba Ibrahim,who, until his death, was a member of the Task Force on Cattle Rustling and Kidnapping at the Force Headquarters, Abuja. Ibrahim was killed by armed men in Katsina-Ala local government area of Benue while on a special assignment. The dastardly killing was followed by last December’s slaughter of six persons, at Idele village, in a clash between suspected Fulani herdsmen and farmers in Oju local government area of the state. Sunday Vanguard learnt that the crisis, the first of it kind in the area, created a mass movement of persons who fled the area for fear of being killed. According to a source, crisis erupted in the community after the locals mobilized and besieged a Fulani settlement in the area to stop a large herd of cattle and herdsmen from gaining access into their village. “The herdsmen and the cattle were moving into the village in large numbers to seek better pasture, but, feeling threatened by the presence of the herdsmen, the villagers put up a blockade and asked their visitors to return to where they were coming from” , the source said. “There was resistance and a crisis ensued that snowballed into a clash that left three villagers killed and several person injured with some others unaccounted for. “It was when the villagers discovered that two of their youths had been killed and another that was earlier declared missing was also found to have been killed by the intruders, that they launched a reprisal attack on the herdsmen, beheading three of them.” The Oju attack was followed by another in January in Makurdi where no fewer than 60 persons were reportedly injured in a clash at Ucha Nyiev village between herders and the host community of the Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, FUAM.
An eyewitness said crisis broke out in the area when unknown youths allegedly killed and made away with six cows belonging to some herdsmen in the area. He said, “When the herdsmen noticed that their cows had rustled, they went in search of the culprits which was resisted by the locals and this led to a bloody clash between the villagers and the herdsmen who were bent on apprehending the youths.
Vanguard