• 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
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.
Introduction
On Saturday, March 20, 2021, Samuel Ioraer Ortom, politician, farmer, former Minister of State for Trade and Investment, and now Governor of Benue escaped death by whiskers when assailants suspected to be herders waylaid him on his way back from his farm. According to Ortom, about 15 herders who were dressed in black outfits ambushed him and his security personnel. In his words “…. I went to my farm along Gboko road. And, on our way back, we started hearing some gunshots and we discovered people who were dressed in black, and from experience, we now discovered that these are Fulani militias and I did not want to take things for granted because, few days ago, the media were awash with statements from MACBAN who met in Yola, the same place they met in 2016 where they decided that they will take Nigeria, and that every other person is a slave; that was when they started infiltrating the entire country”.
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Published 29 April 2021
AGAIN, suspected herdsmen on Tuesday evening killed a man and his wife at Udei branch in Mbabai council ward of the Guma Local Government Area of Benue State.
Locals said the incident happened when the man who was a farmer identified as Igba Faga and his wife were on their way home from the farm.
The local who identified himself as Terna, said, “The incident happened on Tuesday evening; the couple were returning home from the farm when they met some Fulani herdsmen on the road and without provocation, they hacked the couple to death.”
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Barely a few hours after Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom reacted sharply to the killing of seven people at an Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp in the state by suspected Fulani herdsmen, a couple was reportedly hacked to death by suspected herdsmen.
According to the report, the husband and wife were reported to be returning from the farm on Tuesday evening when they were ambushed by suspected Fulani herdsmen and hacked to death.
The latest incident happened at Udei branch in Mbabai council ward of Guma Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State.
A native who did not want his name mentioned told our correspondent that the man identified as Igba Faga and his wife were returning from the farm when the suspected herdsmen attacked and killed them.