You are from Guma, the troubled local government area of Benue which has been devastated following recent attacks, allegedly by Fulani herdsmen. Can you give an account of what really happened?
The people within these areas, parts of Makurdi, Agatu, Guma and now Logo, have been completely displaced; you cannot do anything meaningful with your life. It has been one attack to another which had led to loss of lives. So the killings in Benue State have led to poverty, closure of schools, hunger and starvation. These people are basically farmers. So, their children can’t even go to school aside their localities and the parents cannot afford to pay their school fees. It is a double problem.
Most of these attacks were the barbaric display of slaughtering people. There is no warning, no alarm, then you find your house under siege where children of less than two years are brutally matcheted, slaughtered like chickens; goats, old men and women killed in cold blood. Women who are pregnant were killed and their tummy were sliced and badly opened and their unborn child slaughtered.
There can be no display of barbarism more than this. I have never seen this kind of thing anywhere. It is pure genocide; nobody can convince me it is not because it is systematic. If you are killing children, it means you are destroying the future. Even in normal warfare, when you see children and old women, you ignore them. But here is a situation where you come to a place and kill everything that is alive.
You cannot quantify the cost of life of one human being, but you can quantify the cost of one goat and 10 cows. You can’t quantify the cost of human being; that is why life is sacrosanct. And these people came in with sophisticated weapons unhindered. How did they come into Benue State? Where did they come from? If they are coming by routes or by whatever means, there are police and other security agencies on the roads to check them. And when they come and strike from the borderline where do they run to? Do they disappear into the water or into the air? They must have somewhere they run to, but where?
That is why the governor is alleging that they are hiding around the neighbouring states and that is likely to be true and the attacks are targeted at a particular ethnic group within frontline locations in Benue State. If it is down south, it is Agatu and up north here, are the Tiv people. These killings are not for the sake of grazing. If it is just for grazing, we lived with these people, most of whom I know as a child. For instance, there were some people that lived at the back of my father’s house. We would carry my mother’s corn to them and in the evening they used to come to our father’s house and discussed. These are the Fulani that we knew. But these herdsmen that are carrying rocket launchers, sophisticated weapons, bayonet, Ak47, we don’t know them. These certainly aren’t Fulani herdsmen; they have hired mercenaries for a particular reason to come and exterminate the people within this zone.
I think I cannot quantify the loss because, as a person, I have lost everything I had in the village. In one of the crises, I think 14 March, 2013, my house was burnt down and since then the house has not been fixed. But my brothers that went back to fix their houses and went back to stay there, their houses have been burnt down again. In fact, the whole village has been completely destroyed.
Aside what you lost in 2013, was there anything you lost to the recent attack?
Yes, I have 45 hectares of a rice farm in Awe Local Government Area of Nasarawa State. At the time the herdsmen were relocating from Benue State because of the anti-open grazing law, my rice farm was destroyed. I learnt that they came there in the dead of the night and destroyed 12 hectares of my rice farm.
There is this belief that the herdsmen came to attack as a result of the new law enacted by the state and that they were not allowed to make an input in the process?
You know that there are processes in making law and I am quite aware that at the time of the public hearing, all the communities resident in the state, including members of the Miyetti Alla Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) made an input. What I think should be done, if at all they are not comfortable with the law, is for them to go and challenge it in the court. But to us in the state, the law is very apt because it was meant to protect both the farmers and the herdsmen.
The herdsmen are advocating for the law to be repealed or modified. Do you subscribe to this?
There are many benefits to derive from this law by both the farmers and the herdsmen. Well, if you say modification, possibly if there is need for it, but I do not subscribe that it should be repealed. Those who suffered the loss know the pains they are going through; is it human loss that you cannot quantify? We should not remain in one place. We are developing; there is a need for change and it is believed that ranching is a global practice and they should embrace it.
Gwer West used to be a flashpoint but, of recent, attacks there have reduced. Can’t Guma Local Government Area look for a mechanism to halt these incessant attacks?
There is a seamless transmission from Guma to Nasarawa, while in Gwer there is this big river that separates them. In those days, we used to do things together; there was no demarcation and that was when the only thing the herders carried then was their stick.
Let me say here that the Fulani that lived with us were not the ones we have now. They speak Tiv; they settled with us and we mingled together. We know them and their operation; they will stay for two to three years and leave to another place and later, they will come back to us. We know these ones, unlike the ones now who come to kill, maim and rape and go. I remember in 2013 when they came to my house in the village and burnt it down, we saw an Identity Card of a staff of a local government area from Kebbi State. Now that herdsmen are carrying sophisticated weapons, the question we should ask is, ‘how do the armed herdsmen come in without discovering them?’ We have security men all over and none of them has been caught. It means that our security operatives have failed.
At the meeting of the Benue delegation to President Muhammadu Buhari on Monday, the president told the leaders that they should accommodate their countrymen (the herders). How do you see the president’s admonition?
It has no meaning to our people. I told you earlier on that we had been living in peace with Fulani herdsmen; we shared things together until these armed herdsmen came. With what the people have passed through, he (Buhari) is still advising us to live with them. Is it possible to live with snakes? Are they friends? In fact, it was so shameful and despicable seeing the president cracking jokes with the members of the delegation while we are mourning; it shows lack of seriousness. Though, I do not know details of their discussion, but the part of the video in which I saw him cracking jokes on the life of our people is shameful. This cannot happen in the US. The other time, a terrorist went and shot at people in that country. The following day their president visited the place. But Buhari cannot come to a state where over 73 lives were lost to attacks by herdsmen.
But he ordered that the Inspector General of Police should relocate to the state…
How long will the IG stay in the state? It is just a stop gap. Now, let me ask you this question: since the IG came, how many attackers have they arrested? Unfortunately, police lost two men. How do you want us to have confidence in the IG who had already concluded that the crisis was a communal clash?
Do you think the Federal Government is playing politics with Benue crisis?
It beats my imagination that the police left the killers and were impounding motorcycles and up till now we have not heard of any arrest of the killers.
What do you think can bring a lasting solution to the incessant attacks?
The solution lies in cattle ranching. If there is any problem, you can modify it to suit the Nigerian situation in a manner that everyone will understand it. It is the only way to prevent frequent clashes between farmers and herdsmen. The anti-open grazing law stipulates that land will be made available for those who are interested in getting land to establish ranch. The law does not intend to drive away herdsmen from the state. So, let the herdsmen abide by the law of the state and the law does not violate the constitution of the country.
and then