From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi

Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) in Benue State, has described as callous, the accusations by the All Progressives Congress (APC), that Benue government and its people are rustling cattle belonging to Fulani herdsmen in the state.

The party said it was equally unfortunate that the APC cited that as reason for the spree of wanton killings and destruction by herdsmen in the state.

State Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Bemgba Iortyom, stated this in response to a recent press conference in Makurdi where the APC accused the Governor Samuel Ortom of using the Benue State Livestock Guards for illegal means.

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The PDP said  APC’s accusations against the Benue government was callous and  most unfortunate coming  just days after herdsmen launched an unprovoked bloody attack on Abagana, a community situated at the outskirts of Makurdi, the Benue State capital city, directly opposite the main camp for persons internally displaced from their ancestral homes by previous herdsmen attacks.

“The attack on Abagana had left nine persons dead, among them children, with a family of six wiped out and many still missing and unaccounted for, but leaders of APC in Benue have made it a habit of choosing moments when the people are most in anguish and grief over the atrocities of the herdsmen to indulge in their dance of naked shame,” said Iortyom.

He recalled that on January 11 2018, the day 73 victims  massacred by the herdsmen were given mass burial in Makurdi, leader of APC in Benue State and current Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, George Akume, had said herdsmen were not responsible for the killings, but that it was Benue people who were killing themselves.

The PDP, therefore, accused the APC of playing negative politics with lives of the Benue people.