By Joshua Egbodo
Abuja
A joint committee of the House of Representatives mandated to investigate the alarming influx of herdsmen into Benue state, and the attendant threat to security of lives and property, was yesterday forced to postpone the investigative hearing due to the absence of some key stakeholders from whom inputs were expected.
Absent at the hearing to the consternation of the House were the Minister of Interior, Lt. Gen Abdulrahman Dambazau (retd), IGP Solomon Arase, the DG of the Department of State Services (DSS), Lawan Daura, and the Chief of Army Staff, Lt.-Gen. Tukur Buratai, who the committee said must appear at the hearing “this morning.”
Leadership of the House, represented by the Chief Whip, Alhassan Doguwa, who declared the event open on behalf of the Speaker, Hon. Yakubu Dogara, had earlier expressed displeasure over the absence of some key stakeholders, directing the panel not to hesitate to invoke the relevant provisions of the constitution to compel them, especially over a matter that “lives of Nigerians who we represent and swore to defend are involved.”
Following an earlier resolution of the House on a motion over the Benue attacks by herdsmen, the joint committee on Police Affairs, National Security and Intelligence, and Defence was mandated to carry out the investigations and make appropriate recommendations to the House.
But just after the event was opened yesterday, the Mdzough U Tiv (MUT), a social cultural group of the Tiv people, which was called upon to make its presentation, disclosed that according records from the Benue State Emergency Management Agency, the “unidentified herdsmen” had killed 883 persons in 2014 alone, and more over 100 between 2015 and 2016 in 11 Tiv speaking local governments of Benue state.
On the modus operandi deployed by the herdsmen, President General of MUT, Chief Edward Ujege, said “the attacks are usually very fierce and well-coordinated and targeted at those parts of Benue that lie on the north and south banks of the River Benue, and east and west banks of River Katsina-Ala and their tributaries.”
His presentation which was laced with gory pictures of victims of some of the attacks prompted some members of the committee to draw the panel’s chairman, Hon. Haliru Dauda Jika’s attention to the need to have the key security agencies’ leaders on ground to listen, as well as answer questions that might arise.
The committee then went into a brief secret meeting before resuming as Jika announced the stepping down of the hearing to this morning, threatening to invoke the provisions of sections 88 and 89 of the 1999 Constitution, if any of them “refuses or fails to appear.”
