When the President and the Commander-In-Chief of the Armed Forces came to Makurdi barely two weeks ago, he encouraged the security agencies here with a matching order of our taking proactive measures and taking the battle to the murderers or the killers who perpetrated the massacre at Yelwata. Since then we have arrested 26 suspects. You may be surprised to that some of them are the leaders of the cultural organisations. We have two Ardos (Fulani chiefs) and we also have local people from Yelwata that also helped these outsiders to come and massacre their people or to kill their people. But all in all, as of now, I think we have arrested 26 or 27 suspects and they will soon be charged to court.  The Inspector General of Police’s IRT (Intelligence Response Team) is a special team from Abuja that has been doing a marvellous work. They have gone everywhere to pick them up but some are still on the run. Many of them have been picked, just as I said. We have reinforced security in Yelwata. We have a kind of put Yelwata in a security cordon. We have Mobile Policemen at the back of each side of the town. So, it will not be easy again for the assailants to come from behind the town and the police post is in the middle of the town. The military also have their base there.  So, we have secured Yelwata town with enough or enforced security men, both mobile police units and the tactical squads. We even added APC (Armoured Personnel Carrier) for easy mobility. We are patrolling that axis because it’s not only Yelwata, we also have Ortese that an incident happened yesterday. We have gone all around that axis. We are working in synergy with other sister security agencies. I can assure you that the government of Benue State, led by His Excellency, Reverend Father, Dr. Iormen Hyacinth Alia, has been very supportive to all the security agencies. He has been supporting us with logistics, encouragement and with whatever he can. We hold security meetings regularly. In the past two days or three days, we have held meeting once or twice. It’s a regular thing because we have a situation at hand so all the security agencies in collaboration with the government of Benue State, we are putting heads together to make sure that this hydra-headed monster is killed once and for all.

Also, the Inspector General of Police has pushed immense reinforcements to Benue State. At least mobile police came from about 12 Squadrons added to the ones that we have on ground. Then they also pushed four tactical teams from the Force Headquarters with their intelligence led approach and better techniques and technologies added to the air component which is also taking care of the air. So, the support of the Inspector General Police is holistic.

 It covers every aspect. That’s why we have enough logistics and enough men to move around.  So with the IGP supporting and sending more reinforcements and deployments and the State governor, giving the welfare support, our men are highly motivated and they are taking the battle to the hoodlums, so to speak.

I can assure you that we have enough men on the ground.

All those factors you mentioned are the problems. All of them contribute to the challenge of insecurity in the state. But everything boils down to the farm. That is where most of the clashes happen. The killings happen in the farm. Even the ones that do not happen directly in the farm, it’s always out of what happened in the farm. Just like this Yelwata. Yelwata is not a farm. It’s a rural town and then we have one or two other rural towns that such incidents happened.

But generally, it happens based on disagreements on who owns the farm or who uses the farm because everybody knows who owns the farm. It’s now the usage that is really causing all these matters. But all of them are fuelled by all these factors that you have mentioned. Otherwise, herder/farmer problem is not a new thing in Nigeria. They have always had a way of resolving their matters when they have issues because the animals must eat grasses. Sometimes, they stray into farms and eat the crops and farmers must also ward the animals off but local people have a way of resolving this matter. But the issue now is not a matter of eating crops or shooing away animals. It is a matter of armed men patrolling people’s farms and pursuing away people from their ancestral homes. So that is what makes it a complex matter.  But all the other factors capitalise on this one.  Some people would want it to stop so that everybody will have peace, but you can as well know that it’s not unlikely that some people may not want it to stop because they benefit from the problem.  That’s where the challenges come from but we are interested in the security aspect of it – that both the farmer and the herder must live in peace. If we have a problem, the rule of law will solve it accordingly and that is what the President is hammering in talking about resolving the matter so that everybody will live within the rule of law. The Nigerian Constitution and Benue State laws have enough capacity to protect everybody living in Benue State. As law enforcement officers, we have to enforce the law and that is why we are here.

The problem is protracted, just like you said. When I went to the villages, I went to a place that they showed me an IDP camp that some of the children born at the IDPs camp are 15 years old. The Government of Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia is taking the bull by the horns. What happened at Yelwata and pockets of what is still happening here and there is a kind the hoodlums don’t want to give up easily. So, they must just do something either to discourage the state from continuing taking the line of action against them or just to deceive the world that they are still in charge. No, they are not in charge. All the farms are free, but because the farmers in Benue state have very massive expanse of land, they can easily go and ambush or meet with a farmer in his or her isolated farm and they will deal with them there before help will come and they’ll keep on publicising that action to put fear in people so that they will not come back to their farms.

Meanwhile, they are not staying in the farms, they cannot cover the farms. The security men patrol some of these rural areas once in a while. But there is a massive improvement. If you are in this state, you will know about Aper.  Aper in the past two months has become the epicentre of killings. But in the past three to four weeks now, no incidents have happened in Aper and that is because we posted our tactical teams to cover Aper. Naka was worse than Yelwata. Yelwata is just an isolated incident that happened in that axis. Otherwise, everything happened in Naka before now. As of now, if you can ask, in last three weeks, no incidents have happened in Aper. The security agencies have taken the bull by the horns and cleared armed gunmen in the farmlands.  I want you to understand that the police and other security agencies are not against any cattle herder or any farmer, but we are totally against bandits and armed herdsmen that carry their arms to go and harass farmers. Those that are even not carrying their rifles, carry machetes and daggers to slit the throats of isolated farmers in the bush.  That is what we are against and I also know that that is what the government is against. They are criminals and irrespective of tribe, we will go after them.

Does that mean that with the security measures you have put in place, very soon, the people of Benue State will sleep with their two eyes closed?

If the people in Naka and Apa slept well for the past three weeks without any incidents, with the additional number of reinforcement that the IGP has sent to us and making effective use of them and then the awakening of the people too – the people have also woken up and they are supporting the government and the government is supporting them to stay awake. If you cannot face the bandits with sophisticated weapons, you can always shout. You can always call the security agencies that can help you. I’m also aware that the governor also empowered all the local government chairmen to work in synergy with all the security agencies there. We are working, but it is just that the challenges have been there in the last 10 to 15 years; the solution will come gradually but the farms are free now. That is why you see all these bandits struggling to see whether they can still control the farms but the farms are free and that’s why we are working diligently to make sure that unknown armed men don’t reoccupy the farms. We have made a lot of sacrifices. Our men have paid the supreme price. Even the local security, like the Civil Protection Guards which is the State Government’s outfit, many of them have paid the supreme price and all these sacrifices will not be in vain. I’m sure Benue will be free from all this harassment by bandits. Definitely as we are clearing them, we will not allow them to come back.