The governor of Benue state, Hyacinth Alia has confirmed the k!llings in some parts of his state is not a mere farmer-herder crisis.
Alia described the attacks as being carried out by bandits and terrorists.
He spoke in a chat with Arise TV on Monday night June 16.
Alia was asked which group was responsible for the several attacks. Responding, he said
‘'This is not the first time these attacks are happening. In this very local government of Guma, it shares boundaries with Nasarawa state and internally it shares boundaries with Makurdi local government. It on the way to Abuja, right by the side of the road. The Yelewata area is a very sizeable town.
The anxiety we started having in this local government spanned as far back as 20 to 23 years ago and how it happened was that the herders clashed with the farmers. This took quite a lot of time and eventually in the last 12 years, it shifted it moved into the armed herders versus the entire communities.
The farmers were affected. They were every now and then driven off from their homes, their homes destroyed. They had to leave their farmlands as well. Since its been there for quite sometime, a good number of people were tired of seeing the repeat every now and then and then shifted into towns.
Of late, what we see is it is stronger and much way beyond farmer-herder crisis. We are being attacked by bandits and terrorists. This has persisted for quite sometime but the level we have experienced in the last two months is so much alarming''
Watch a video of him speaking below