From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
There’s a Yoruba adage that “when a big problem befalls a man, smaller problems will definitely start climbing the big problem”.
This must have been the plight of a 27-year-old Daniel Bem, an internally displaced person (IDP), who has narrowly escaped death for the fourth time in the last two years in the hands of invaders that are suspected to be herdsmen.
Of all the incidents, he is yet to recover from how he lost his bosom friend to the gunmen.
Narrating his ordeal to our correspondent in Makurdi last Sunday, Bem said he was displaced from his Adai village in Guma Local Government Area (LGA) of Benue State since 2019 by suspected Fulani herdsmen.
He recalled that in 2019 when Fulani herdsmen invaded his village, seven people were killed, which had reduced hundreds of his people to IDPs in and around the state till date.
“Nobody stays in my village till date because the fear is that the Fulani herdsmen are still there. We only go there to farm and return to town. Many villages within my LGA have been deserted too because of the activities of these herdsmen,” Bem said.
He said, after his displacement from his village, he relocated to Tse-Ancha, after Again Toll Gate, in Makurdi LGA, where he was staying with one of his friends in his family house.
He said while at his friend’s family compound one night, they were both asleep on the same mat when, suddenly, they started hearing fierce volley of gunshots around the community.
‘We all ran in different directions in the room while the sounds of the gunshots kept coming closer to us. I told my friend that we should find a way of getting out of that room so we can run away but I guess he was too afraid to take that risk.
“When I noticed that he was not ready to leave the room for fear, I opened the only window to our hut and managed to escape through it and I was expecting my friend to follow me but, sadly, he didn’t.
“Unfortunately, shortly after I escaped, the armed herdsmen stormed the compound and shot my friend dead. It was like a dream to me when I returned to the house and saw my friend with whom I shared the same room and same mat a few hours ago lying stone dead in a pool of blood.”
Bem said that incident made him to leave that village and he has been moving from one place to another in search of greener pastures.
He said his next stop-over after the Tse-Ancha incident was at Tse-Zolla in Makurdi LGA, but after spending some months in the community, he again had to run away because of Fulani invasion.
The hapless young man, who disclosed that he was a shoemaker/cobbler and farmer before the violent invasion of his village by herdsmen in 2019, said that he now squats somewhere in North Bank area of Makurdi, working as a delivery man to a satchet water factory.
But again, he said he narrowly escaped the bullets of suspected herdsmen last Wednesday while at the farm at Tse-Zolla community.
“My friend, Aondoakura Tiv, and I had gone to the farm to harvest some cassava because we were hungry. We were almost done with our farm work when, again, we started hearing sounds of gunshots resonating through the village. We left everything, including our already harvested cassava, and ran for our dear lives.
“In the process of running, I lost the only N3,000 that I had. It was painful that I lost the money because that’s all I had, but I thank God that I didn’t lose my life in the process.
“Later ,we heard that nobody was killed but many villagers who had also gone to the farm in the area were displaced as a result. People said those who were shooting were Fulani because they had been having some issues with them for sometime now,” Bem said.
Asked if security men were around the communities, Bem said, “Yes, there are security men around and they are trying their best but how many are they to be able to secure all communities in Benue or even Nigeria?”
Governor reacts
Reacting to the increasing number of IDPs in the state occasioned by the activities of armed herdsmen, Governor Samuel Ortom urged the Federal Government to do everything in its power to ensure that the people return to their ancestral homes without further delay.
The governor, who spoke in Gbajimba, his home local government last Monday, said he would not stop talking until respite comes the way of the people of the state who are daily being chased from their ancestral homes by criminal herdsmen.
“I will not keep quiet and allow some group of people chase my people away from their homes and continue to make them IDPs. Gbajimba has over 500,000 IDPs. I appeal to the Federal Government to stop these herdsmen and declare them a terrorist group.
“They should stop the killing and destruction of our property. I will not engage any militia group but I will seek justice for my people,” he said.
Ortom, who maintained that security remained a mandatory responsibility of every government, commended recent efforts by government in combating insecurity, especially in Benue State, even as he appealed that the efforts should be sustained.