From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
President General of Mzough-U-Tiv, CP Iorbee Ihagh rtd has warned that Nigeria may cease to exist if President Muhammadu Buhari fails to squarely address the current insecurity situation plaguing the country.
Ihagh gave the warning on Sunday while addressing newsmen in Makurdi, the State capital further warned that the 2023 elections may not hold if leaders of the country continue to pay lip service to issues of security.
Ihagh who is the Chairman of the three major socio-cultural groups in the state lamented that close to 100 Benue people have been brutally murdered in bizarre circumstances by armed herdsmen in the last three weeks.
“It is no doubt that this is not the best of times for our dear state as we are suddenly returning to the pre-grazing law era, when armed herders turned our communities into theaters of bloodbath, when close to 20 Local Government Areas of the state suffered terrible attacks by these marauders, living thousand of our people dead and communities, properties as well as farmlands in ruins.”
While regretting last Tuesday’s invasion of Abagana IDP camp by suspected Herdsmen which left seven persons dead and several others injured, Ihagh however noted that the statement from the Media aide to the President, Mallam Garba Shehu has gone a long way to expose the hidden agenda and insensitivity of the Buhari led federal government to the plight of the people.
“It is sad to say the least that the federal government has given us every reason to believe that it is complicit in the killings in Benue by herdsmen militia simply because we have a grazing law and our people rejected the RUGA and Cattle colony policy of the federal government.
“The fact that Mallam Shehu in that statement failed to reprove the masterminds of the attacks in Benue clearly exposed how our lives in this part of the country worth nothing to Mallam Shehu and those he works for.
“Shehu accusing Governor Ortom of politicizing the killings in Benue because he cried out, is tantamount to dancing on the graves of our murdered loved ones and it is totally unacceptable and we demand a retraction of that statement and an apology tendered to our people who are daily grieving the gruesome murder of their loved ones.
“Ihagh reminded the federal government that Nigerians have found themselves in the current security quagmire because government openly gave its support to armed herdsmen while they slaughtered Nigerians in their ancestral homes in a bid to take over their land.
He enjoined all well meaning Nigerians home and abroad, and indeed, the international community to immediately intervene in the matter with a view to bringing a lasting solution to the high level insecurity the country has found itself before it becomes too late.