IT should be clear by now that the government’s nonchalant approach to the onslaught of terrorists on indigenous communities across the country, including Southern Kaduna and Benue State where they launched a deadly attack on 31 communities in the Apa Local Government Area recently, killing at least 89 persons, has emboldened them to carry out routine acts of terror. According to the chairman of the Apa Development Association (ADA), Eche Akpoko, who gave the casualty figures at a news conference in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, the herders staged the attacks between January and March this year. Akpoko disclosed that the local government had been under siege, stressing that the rampaging marauders raped women, maimed and killed innocent, defenceless indigenes of the area in their homes and farms using guerilla asymmetric warfare with the intent to take over their lands.
Akpoko indicated that large numbers of Benue indigenes had been displaced from their homes, which the terrorists set ablaze. The communities affected by the pogrom include Ope-Ikobi, Ochi-Ikobi, Olugwu-Ikobi, Inowa-Ikobi, Olegoncha-Ikobi, Ijaha-Ikobi, Imana-Ikobi and Oleoke-Ikobi. Others are Ebugodo-Edikwu, Ankpali-Edikwu, Olegijamu-Edikwu, Olekele-Edikwu, Ukpogo-Edikwu, Edikwu-Icho, Edikwu-Oladoga, Okwiji-Edikiwu and Ojecho-Edikwu, Oiji-Ipole, Oiji-Efu, Oiji-Jos, Oiji- Oshodi, Oiji-Highlevel and Oiji-New Jerusalem. The terrorists were also said to have attacked Ugbobi, Odugbo, Olegogba, Akpete, Opaha, Akpanta and Iyapu communities. Said Akpoko: “We maintain that these unprovoked attacks on Apa Local Government people are a clear case of Fulani invasion and forceful occupation of their land. Our position has been confirmed by a publication trending on social media wherein the Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) claimed responsibility for the sustained attacks in Benue State.” He reiterated the determination of the people to resort to self-defence if the Federal Government failed to curb the attacks.
Over the years, particularly in the last eight years that President Muhammadu Buhari has been in the saddle, nomadic terrorists have shed blood in the state and across the country. Intelligence agencies have, instead of going after these outlaws and stopping them in their tracks, chosen to focus attention on the critics of the government and on political issues. Military (wo)men and officers have stood idly by while the so-called herders turned communities into killing fields, scoffing at the Nigerian State and exulting in their presumed special status as unchallenged killers. Naturally, in the present case, there have been accusations and counter-accusations over the failure of law enforcement agents to act decisively during the carnage. Ideally, though, proper investigations ought to be carried out to establish what actually transpired. That would go a long way to guarantee public confidence in the authorities, but we are not exactly sure that anything is going to be done.
It is true that following the reports of renewed killings in Benue State, President Buhari condemned the killings and asked the security agencies to go after the perpetrators and stop the orgy of violence. But Nigerians definitely must be amused by the usual riposte by the President. The killings have been going on for so long under his watch and it is difficult to assume that he really gets disturbed with the reports on the bloodshed. It is distressing that the only thing a President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces could do about the activities of killer gangs all over the country is to continually sympathise with the victims while the killers remain on the loose. It is really a sad commentary on the tenure of the president and all those who serve him as chiefs of security agencies that the country could become so lawless under their watch. People are killed and butchered routinely in their homes even when the country is not experiencing any known war. Nigeria has never had it so bad.
It is our hope that this sorry situation will pass and that Nigerians will usher in a new era of responsive and responsible governance. Nigerians have the right to hope for a government that will not treat killers with kid gloves.
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