Nigerian Concord Newspaper
The Internally Displaced Persons in Ukum local government area of Benue state today called out the state governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia for failing to fulfil his promise to return them back to their ancestral homes within his first one hundred days in office as governor.
The IDPs expressed their anger towards the governor in a trending video today following Tuesday’s attack on the IDPs camp in the local government by some armed Fulani herdsmen who have been doing all to take over the land.
According to the IDPs, the deadly Fulani attack on the IDP camp wouldn’t have taken place on Tuesday if Governor Alia had fulfilled his campaign promise to take them back to their ancestral homes within the first one hundred days in office which was last month.
They bitterly queried the governor why he failed to honour a very important promise such as taking them away from the IDPs.
In his own reaction, the District Head of Uyo, Chief Samuel Atsar who lamented that his people’s ancestral land and farms have been taken over by the herdsmen, appealed to the Government to take proactive steps to secure the communities for the people to go back and continue with farming, their source of livelihood.
Other members of the displaced communities who are taking refuge at Ayati, including Bemdoo Orti and Lazarus Kighir, decried the serious humanitarian challenges they were facing including lack of food, shelter, medication, and called on government to come to their aid.
It would be recalled that some suspected bandits on Tuesday attacked camps of Internally Displaced Persons at Ayati, Ukum Local Government, where most of those displaced from other communities by suspected militia herdsmen are taking refuge.
According to reports, the bandits shot sporadically, dispersing the IDPs, and throwing them into further safety challenges.
Investigation reveals that some communities in Ukum Local Government Area, including Tse-Ikyereve, Tse-Ishan, Bokpa, Tse-Ikyanyon, Mbaagena, Tse-Hwembe and Ityotsar, all of Uyo-Mbaagir have for long been taken over by suspected militia herdsmen, along with their farms.
Many residents of the affected communities consequently fled, for fear of what could happen to them, to areas such as Ayati and Zaki-Biam, a situation which has posed serious humanitarian challenges to the affected, worsened by the attack.