Groups Allege Plan To Attack Benue/Nasarawa Border Communities

Benue State Socio-Cultural Organisations have raised the alarm over the converging of suspected terrorists at the borders between Benue and Nasarawa states preparatory to launch further attacks on unsuspecting communities in the state.

This is even as the president generals of the three main socio-cultural organisations including Mdzough U Tiv, Chief Iorbee Ihagh (rtd); Ochetoha K’Idoma, AVM Tony Adokwu (rtd); and Omi Ny’Igede, Dr  Ben Okpa, in a statement attributed the planned attack to the video outburst and a document signed by the deposed Emir of Kano and former CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi and 51 others and presented to President Muhammadu Buhari.

According to them, “It seems the grand conspiracy by Sanusi and his ‘partners’ may have also begun to work out in their favour, with the annihilation of peasant farmers from their communities on both divides, through reprisals, since Sanusi and his company falsely accused Governor Ortom of masterminding the Akwanaja bombing in Doma local government area of Nasarawa State.

“We want to emphasize here that for linking Governor Ortom with the recent bombing which was allegedly carried out by the Nigeria Army, we are appealing to the International Community to place the former CBN Governor Sanusi Lamido Sanusi on the terrorists’ watch list and keep a close tab on his activities.”

The groups lamented that the deposed Emir of Kano also twisted the facts in the matter when he alleged that the attack on the terrorists was carried out by the governor of Benue State and/or by extension, the Benue State Livestock Guards and the State Volunteer Guards.

“Even though the military has claimed responsibility for the air strike that killed the terrorists, Sanusi and his cohorts are hell-bent on making the allegations on the Governor stick, this amounts to giving a dog a bad name in order to hang it,” they added.

They said more disturbing is that Sanusi and co are doing everything possible to make the whole world believe that the persons that were killed during the military operation were harmless nomads, whereas they were terrorists who were targeted and killed during one of their meetings, when they met with the aim of launching further attacks on innocent people in Benue communities, bordering Nasarawa State.

“We have also identified the desperate attempt by Sanusi and his band of supporters to give the attack on the terrorists an ethnic coloration, thereby setting Benue State up against the armed herdsmen invasion. Otherwise, how would someone like Sanusi place the cost of one cow at N1 million, if it is not in a desperate attempt to cause disaffection, pick a fight and get a reason to attack Benue communities,” they said.