Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
The Benue State Government has condemned Monday night’s herdsmen attack on Agasha community in Guma Local Government Area of the state, during which two locals reportedly lost their lives.
The state government also commended the joint military spike Operation Whirl Stroke (OPWS) for immediately swinging into action to neutralize four of the armed invaders.
Our correspondent gathered that immediately the troops of the OPWS were alerted about the attack, they gave the invaders a hot chase and gunned down four of them and recovered two AK-47 from them.
Speaking with Daily Sun on Wednesday, Senior Special Assistant to Governor Samuel Ortom on Animal Husbandry, Alhaji Shehu Tambaya, lamented that the incessant herdsmen attacks on Benue communities have continued to take its toll on the food basket state as the farming communities can no longer go to their farms.
He regretted that the invaders have continued to carry out their killing spree in spite of the enforcement of the state’s anti-open grazing law.
Tambaya, who wondered why the herdsmen should still be around despite the onset of the cropping season, noted that what was known in the past is that the herdsmen would usually go back to their base at the end of the dry season.
“But these days, the herdsmen are everywhere all year round which was not so in the past.”
The governor’s aide appealed to security agencies to do their best to secure the Benue villages to enable the farming community, especially those who are currently taking refuge in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, return to their ancestral homes and to their farms.