Benue Community Seeks Military Base To Halt Militia Attack

Leaders of Igede Youth Council (IYC), in collaboration with sister organisations, have appealed to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to immediately establish a Forward Operating Base (FOB) with full military deployments at the boundary between Ukpute and Bonta towns to halt the killing of their kinsmen by suspected Tiv militiamen.

The Ukpute and Bonta communities of Oju and Konshisha local government areas have been embroiled in communal clashes over land disputes lasting for about 27 years.

IYC alleged that the Tiv militia killed 11 soldiers and one officer deployed to keep the peace in the community in April 2021.

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At a press conference in Abuja yesterday on the incessant killings of the people reportedly by the Tiv militia, the president of IYC, Comrade Andyson Iji Egbodo, said the urgent deployment of troops to the disputed boundary between Bonta and Ukpute by President Tinubu would act as a short-term measure save the lives of the people majority of whom had been thrown out of their ancestral homes by the marauders.

Speaking on the text on the press conference titled, “Governor Hyacinth Alia’s ominous silence over incessant attacks on Ukpute and other (Igede) communities by Bonta (Tiv) militia: A call for urgent measures to halt the extermination of Igede people in Benue State”, Egbodo urged President Tinubu to “prevail on Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia to deploy all internal security measures and ensure the immediate reopening of the Awajir-Oju Road, which has been closed by the Bonta Tiv since July 2024. It is our only access road to the state capital.

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IYC also pleaded with the government to rescue the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camping in different locations within Igede by providing shelter, food, health care, and other social and economic reliefs as obtained in other IDP camps in the state.

Egbodo said since the unprovoked crisis resumed on July 5, 2024, the governor has yet to make any public statement condemning the assault on us and did not make any arrangement to deploy security agents to stop the needless killings for the past four months. Still, when the crisis erupted in Ayatse community, Ukum LGA, on or about June 30, 2024, the governor immediately sent his deputy, Dr Sam Odeh, to the place as well as deployed security agents the following day to quell the crisis, imposing a 24-hour curfew in the entire Ukum LGA from July 1, 2024, till further notice.

“The concerned authorities mentioned above may recall that this crisis was the reason for the gruesome murder of 11 soldiers and an officer of the Nigerian Army by Bonta militia in April 2021 while on a peace-keeping mission to the crisis area. Shortly after the burial of the slain soldiers, the militias resumed hostilities. They continued the killing, maiming, looting, raping and destruction of life and property of the people of Ukpute and other neighbouring Igede communities.

Also, a legal practitioner from the area, John Owulo, said since the renewed hostilities began, at least 30 persons from Ukpute and the surrounding communities had been killed.