• State Govt to legally arm newly formed Community Volunteer Guards By Peter Duru, Makurdi It’s been three weeks of bloodbath in what seemed a coordinated attack on communities in neigbouring Makurdi, Guma and Gwer West Local Government Areas, LGAs, of Benue state where armed herdsmen mindlessly bared their fangs on helpless farmers leaving close to 70 people dead and more than double that figure injured. The marauders also razed houses, food barns, and farmlands in some of the besieged communities leaving in their wake trails of devastation that may take the communities several years to recover. Perhaps the period under review may best be described as one of the worst in the history of the state in the gory slaughter of defenseless farmers and their family members by the bloodthirsty marauders aside the 2018 new year’s day coordinated massacre in Logo and Guma LGAs that claimed close to 80 lives sparking widespread outrage both locally and internationally.