Benue youths protesting against incessant killings by herdsmen
By TYAV SAM TYAV, Makurdi –
Angry youths in Makurdi, Benue State on Sunday morning staged a peaceful protest at Wurukum roundabout blocking the major highways that lead to other parts of the country to register their grievances over the massacre of the people by invading armed herdsmen.
The said peaceful protest was informed by the seeming inaction by the authorities concerned over the incessant killings of the armless Benue people.
The protesting youths dressed in black attires and were carrying palm fronds and placards with different inscriptions and barricaded the roads and in the process disrupted vehicular movement as they demanded immediate action from the government to end the bloodshed.
“A cry for help, stop Benue killings”, was the inscription on one of the placards.
In a bid to disperse the angry youths the police tear gassed the youths even as a security helicopter was spotted in the town carrying aerial surveillance when the protest was in progress.
Our checks confirmed that there was heavy security presence in Makurdi town as all security formations including the military, police, NSCDC, Immigration had stationed their personnel at strategic locations to ensure that there was no breakdown of law and order.
The Benue State Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia had in a statement by Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula warned against protest but the angry youths had in the wee hours of the day, defied the state government’s directive and went out to protest the killings in the state
The use of tear gas on the protesters by the Police propelled a reaction of a PDP Chieftain, Chief Bemgba Iortyom, who condemned the act of exploding tear-gas cannisters against the protesters.
According to the PDP Chieftain, the youths were conducting themselves peacefully and the use of tear gas on the armless youths “only amplifies the fact of Governor Alia’s lack of empathy for the suffering people and a total disconnect from their feelings even at a time of deep pain and sorrow.”
Iortyom lamented that the governor lacks “the will to confront the evil of Fulani herdsmen atrocities in the state has been glaring, with his daily shifting of blame for the killings against one group to another – from the helpless victims whom he blames for cattle rustling, to Abuja based political leaders from the state, to even religious leaders whom he labels as “religious bandits”.
He expressed displeasure that Governor Alia was unwilling to call out Fulani herdsmen and confront them even as Benue has continued to bleed from daily killings by the herdsmen who go about their crimes largely unchallenged.
Following the massacre of the Benue people in Yelwata, the state government, has evacuated her citizens from neighbouring Nasarawa State.
The Benue State Emergency Management Agency (BSEMA) did the evacuation and the survivors were taken to the Makurdi International Market.
Several families as confirmed were wiped out by the blood thirsty herders during the attack on Yelwata.
