TAFI (Benue State) – There seems to be no end in sight to the insecurity problems confronting the nation: there is Boko Haram plaguing the Northeast, bandits terrorizing the Northwest and North-Central, Fulani herdsmen maiming and killing defenseless farmers and villagers in the Southwest and South-South and Briafran agitators compounding the security problem of kidnapping in the Southeast. The nation seems caught in the throes of insecurity.
While Boko Haram attacks and bandits kidnapping school children in the North seem to be grabbing global news headlines, the menace of armed nomadic Fulani herdsmen in the Middle-Belt and Southern parts of the nation seems to have gone unnoticed despite the countless deaths and destruction that these herdsmen have left in their wake.
Reports reaching our news desk from Tafi in the Middle-Belt state of Benue have it that another round of herdsmen attack recently ravaged the agrarian town of Tafi where several farmers were reportedly killed in their farms over grazing rights. The Fulani Herdsmen allegedly entered the villager’s farms with their herd of cattle and started eating up the crops. According to a reliable source, trouble started when some of the farmers and villagers confronted the Herdsmen unknown to them that the Herdsmen were heavily armed with AK-47 assault riffles and other sophisticated weapons.
Several farmers were shot and slaughtered in the carnage that ensued. One particularly gory story was that of a woman simply identified as Mrs Okunde who was repeatedly raped to death by at least six Fulani herdsmen and later butchered and dismembered in a most barbaric manner. According to our investigation, a son of the slain woman by name Saturday Okunde, was left for dead in a pool of his blood.
Our source further revealed that the slain woman, Mrs Okunde, was a widow who lost her husband sometimes in 2005 to armed robbers under similar circumstances an incident that was also witnessed by their young son, Saturday Okunde. The said Saturday Okunde miraculously escaped the Herdsmen attacks because the Herdsmen presumed him dead. Our investigation has it that the said Saturday Okunde later saw and recognized one of his mother’s killers . The young man reportedly ran away from the village when the identified killer in company of other Herdsmen started looking for the said Saturday Okunde to silence him by way of death because the herdsman he identified was, in fact, the Boko Haram leader in Benue State. The young man reportedly fled to Taraba State where he was also traced to by some terrorist hell bent on killing him. As at press time, the whereabouts of the said Saturday Okunde has not been ascertained although an anonymous source told our news crew that the young man has fled the country altogether.
The nation seems enveloped in a vortex of crime, criminality and insecurity almost tilting towards a failed state. It is, however, hoped that the different law enforcement agencies will put their acts together to ensure that this nation does not continue on a trajectory of lawlessness and insecurity.
