INVESTIGATIONS… ‘THEY WANT OUR LANDS’: Horror, brutal killings as grazing disputes overwhelm Benue
The people of Benue State seem to have had more than a fair share of tragedies emanating from attacks carried out by marauders suspected to be herdsmen. Hundreds have been killed, and whole communities sacked in attacks that smacks of a deliberate and planned motive to ensure that such areas are devoid of the humans who lay claim to the land.
Guma and Buruku local government areas, as well as Agatu communities have been the worst hit, and the results have been tales of helplessness, sorrow and perceived conspiracies, laced with accusations and denials amid bloodshed.
Tales Of Horror
After losing all he had worked for to what he called Fulani occupation, TY, a displaced farmer in his sixties now lives with other displaced persons inside a camp— built by Benue Non-Governmental Network with support from the UN— tucked somewhere in Daudu, Guma local government area of Benue State. “It was after the third attack on our community that we decided to run for our dear lives,” TY told Ripples Nigeria during a visit to the the camp.
“The first time they came, it was in the afternoon,” the farmer painfully recollected. “We just saw them, suddenly, from nowhere, and they started burning houses that were by the roadside.” TY explained that these attackers, heavily armed and dressed in army-camouflage, didn’t look like the Fulani herdsmen that they know and see around. “They came on motorbikes and looked like soldiers coming to wage war,” he explained. In the subsequent attacks, however, TY claimed that the attackers came with the consent of the herdsmen whose cattle were used as cover to infiltrate. “These other times, what we first saw were herdsmen grazing their cattle as they normally do, and suddenly, there would be a deliberate stampede and from behind them, these attackers would jump out and start shooting sporadically.”
The farmer, who now idly sits under the shade of a mango tree at the camp, said he had since lost the agility to farm, after his farmlands and properties were destroyed.
Displaced persons at the Daudu/Guma camp
Rebecca Uke, a farmer from Kaduoko in neighboring Nassarawa has survived series of attacks before she eventually ran to the camp in Guma. “They will attack, and we would run and then, return. They will attack again, we will run and return”, she recalls. Uke, however, hasn’t returned since her sister-in-law whom she goes to the farm with was shot dead. “She was on her way home from the farm, when the attackers, who took her to be a man because she was wearing trousers, shot her in the head,” Uke, with a teary voice, narrated the event that finally made her run for her life.
“Not many people who were on their way back from the farm survived the shootings that evening. And after killing those they could on the farm, they advanced to our homes and we all started running, trying to get the children to safety first.” When Uke and other villagers thought they had got a refuge somewhere within the village, the attackers came on them again. “While we were waiting, hoping that security operatives would move in and save us, we were shot at again.” Uke lamented the no-rescue response by the security operatives since these killers started attacking them. “This prompted some of our young men to form a vigilante to resist these attacks, but what they had couldn’t match the weaponry of these attackers who came attacking when no one would have expected.” One night, Uke’s neighbor had gone outside to urinate, and they would wake to see her lifeless body. “She was slaughtered like a goat,” Uke said. The vigilante was dislodged by the attackers, and many of these young men were brutally killed.
During the dry season, sometime in 2015, Boa and her family members were on their farmland, cultivating yams, when the attackers came. Just like Uke narrated, the attackers came, using cattle as cover and all they could first see were herdsmen grazing cattle towards their farm. “I was resting under the shade that was a few meters away when one of them jumped out from behind the cattle and started shooting at my family members who were working on the ridges,” Buo recollected. “My brother was shot on the leg, and again shot in the chest. Utonga, his wife who was breastfeeding their suckling, was shot in the back and the bullets penetrated through her stomach that it burst out with her intestines, splashing blood all over the baby’s body. My mother was shot in the head, and my in-law who came visiting and was with us in the farm was also slain with a gunshot in her chest.”
Boa, and two others, ran through the bushes until they got to the main road, and to a nearby town where they saw a group of policemen who would later go to the farm to recover the remains of her family members and the baby who had been soaked in the pool of blood.
Boa’s family members that were killed
“There is no hope of going back, because these attackers have already taken over our place,” cried Boa, who now lives in Guma camp, looking after her late brother’s baby.
Moses Lan, a farmer and NCE (National Certificate of Education) holder, was farming and teaching in the peaceful atmosphere of Umegi, his village, until last December when they were attacked. “These herdsmen came initially to attempt a bargain with us,” Lan explained. “But, we couldn’t allow them graze cattle over our farmlands because, just like they value their cows, we value our crops, too.” The farmers didn’t agree with these herdsmen, and a few days later, they were attacked.
“They started burning houses from Tokura to Tokasi and to Umegi,” Lan said. “They attacked in the day time, and we heard them saying the land belongs to them, that they’ve bought it.” Lan and his family narrowly escaped and ran to Daudu. “I have an aged father who is terribly sick now, because he has not recovered from the shock,” Lan said with a faint voice. His livelihood has been destroyed and he is unable to buy drugs for his dying father. The little food items being distributed in the camp do not always go round, and Lan bitterly complained of his inability to properly feed his family. “What was destroyed on my farms in Umegi can feed my family and ten other families for years,” Lan’s eyes almost let out the tears. “If you go to Umegi now, what are left there are destroyed farmlands and wreckages of burnt houses. Even if we are to return, I don’t have money to restart farming and build another house.”