Benue residents accuse Nigerian Army of providing security for Fulani herdsmen who attacked them

VICTIMS of the ongoing violence perpetuated by Fulani herdsmen in Benue State have accused troops from the Nigerian Army of assisting those behind the bloodshed when they carry out some of their crimes.

Over recent years, there have been ongoing clashes between herdsmen and local farming communities across Nigeria, leading to the deaths of thousands of innocent people. In response, the federal government has set up a presidential panel to investigate  the matter and come up with recommendations.

Yesterday, the panel held its inaugural sitting in Abuja, with Benue indigenes narrating how soldiers helped rampaging herdsmen to attack their communities. Panel chairman Justice Biobele Georgewill, said the proceeding will provide a unique opportunity to those that have genuine and verifiable cases of human rights abuses by the armed forces, in the course of managing and containing local conflicts and insurgencies, to submit their memoranda.

He said the panel will hold a public hearing in each of the six geo-political zones of the country on selected dates and centres. It will be recalled that the panel, which was constituted by vice president Professor Yemi Osinbajo, while he was the acting president, was tasked to, among other things, review compliance of the forces with human rights obligations and rules of engagement, especially in the local conflict and insurgency situations.

Residents of Moon Valley communities in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State took turns to narrate their experience. They narrated how about 30,000 persons were sacked by the military from their abode.

Represented by their lawyer, Mike Utsaha, the community told the panel that while 28 persons were killed in the attack, 91 compounds and property were destroyed. According to the community, the attack was carried out by the 93 Battalion of the Nigerian Army, located in Takum, Taraba State.

In an 18-page memorandum submitted to the panel, the community stated how following intense and sustained attacks between 2013 to 2015, they were massacred and displaced from their ancestral land by the combined team of soldiers and herdsmen. Jacob Kwaghkper, a retired deputy director of the National Commission for Colleges of Education, told the panel that from 2015 to June 2017, five communities that make up the Moon Valley were subjected to intense, sustained and coordinated attacks by soldiers from the 93 Battalion and herdsmen, leading to the death of 28 people.

He told the panel that the herdsmen, with the active support of soldiers, were still occupying ancestral lands of the five communities. Lamenting before the panel, Mr Kwaghkper said Nigerian Army troops were active participants in the massacre.

He added: “The soldiers are even providing security for the herdsmen, who are occupying the ancestral lands of the communities. The displaced people of the communities, who escaped from the series of sustained attacks, have become refugees in Cameroon and internally displaced persons, taking shelter in various places in Kwande Local Government Area of Benue State, under the watchful eyes of both the federal and state government without any form of assistance.”

Another witness, Agbo Utah, told the panel that soldiers watched as herdsmen burnt down his compound. He also narrated how he was beaten, arrested and detained for a week by soldiers who disrupted local government election held in the area in 1998.