Activities of criminals now dubbed herdsmen have continued to take their toll on different families and communities, even as the federal government and law enforcement agencies battle to curb the menace of these nomads. In this report, KULA TERSOO captures the account of a survivor of one of such attacks which led to the death of her siblings and almost left her dead too and efforts by government as well as security agencies to curb this form of crime
Thursday, September 25, 2014, started like any other day for 14-year-old Nyieshield, and her elder sister, Jumai, 17, daughters of a peasant farmer John Jirgba, in Tse-Shima, Mbatoho, Mbalagh Council Ward of Makurdi LGA, Benue state and an in-law, as well as their sister-in-law, Msendoo, 18.
However, it ended on a tragic note with the renewed massacre by suspected nomadic herdsmen on the Tiv farmers as reportedly raped and murdered in cold blood the two girls who were in the bush to fetch firewood while Nyieshile, narrowly escaped with her life after receiving several machete cuts including on her neck.
Recounting her experience to Blueprint on her sick bed at the Makurdi General Hospital where she is receiving treatment for the injuries she sustained in the hand of the suspected herdsmen, she told our correspondent that the three of them Had had gone to the farm to fetch firewood when the unfortunate incidence happened.
She said, “I went together with my sisters to fetch firewood when a Fulani man approached us and ordered that we put down the firewood we were carrying and follow him. We initially resisted but when he drew his dagger, we obeyed.
“On our way we meet two other Fulani men and they ordered my sisters to pull their cloth and lie down. They asked me not to go anywhere so I started crying as the other two were beating up my sisters and forcing them to sleep with them.”
According to her, when the herdsmen were done having sex with the sister they starting inflicting Machete cuts on them which made her panic and run away into the bush with one of the men chasing after.
Nyieshile, stated that when her assailant caught up with her he also attacked her with a machete, adding that she must have fainted as she woke up to find to find that was alive though in the pull of her own blood.
Speaking further, she said that she could not recall how she managed to get to a path way close to the road where she was rescued and taken to the hospital for treatment while a search party was dispatched to rescue her sister.
She was to later learn that the mutilated body of her sister, Jumei, was discovered in a shallow grave near the crime scene by a detachment of security personnel from C Division, North Bank, while the equally mutilated remains of her sister in-law, Msendoo, was exhumed by the Police three days the arrest of one Adamu Ibrahim, 20, in connection with the rape and murder of the teenagers. The suspect, who confessed to the crime, was said to have directed the security operatives to where they had buried the body.
Activities of suspected herdsmen in states like Benue are fast assuming a worrisome dimension with many querying the possibility of the nomads actually carrying out the magnitude of damage attributed to them. These has led to suggestion in some quarters that criminal and even the Boko Haram sect could be masquerading under the guise of herdsmen and committing some of the crimes.
While these assertions are yet to be proved or disproved lives and property running into millions are being lost reportedly as a result of activities of these herdsmen. Worried by the continued maiming and killing of suspected herdsmen in Benue state and other parts of the North, a member of the Benue State House of Assembly, Hon. Avine Agbom, blamed the increase in such crime to lack of security in the affected places, even as he insisted that the areas prone to these attacks were completely under the control of Fulani herdsmen.
He said that in a bid to mitigate the situation he had: “Sought and got the approval of the Governor of Benue State, Dr. Gabriel Suswam, to station security personnel at some designated areas in Mbalagh. The Governor who appreciates the seriousness of the matter quickly sent Police personnel there and there has been relative peace there.”
He wondered why the security personnel were withdrawn giving rise to increased attack on the people who are his constituents. This is as he appealed to the state governor and Commissioner of Police (CP) to reassign establish a security post in the area or ensure increased so as to create an enabling environment for people to go about their businesses without fear of molestation but the herdsmen.
The legislator maintained that Fulani herdsmen who previously came to the area for grazing in the dry season but left during the rains to allow the farmers to cultivate their land appear to have completely taken over their land.
However, the Police in Benue state insist that security operatives were working to ensure that lives and property were protected in the state. Speaking to journalists at the Benue Police Command Headquarters in Makurdi while parading, Adamu Ibrahim, the state’s CP, Hycienth Dagala, expressed shock at the development, even as he promised that the suspect would be made to pay for his crime.
According to him, “I am not happy seeing women and children as victims in such issues. I am putting structures together to tackle the problem. We are going back to history to see how the issue of grazing route can be revisited. However, since all land belongs to government, it can use its authority to enforce strict rules on grazing areas and possibly revitalize them.”
The suspect who admitted to having taken ‘tramol 200’, a substance said to be an energizer, and was under the influence of same at the time of the incident, claimed he committed the crime alone.
