Youths in Benue State on Monday staged a protest over the increasing violent attacks on the people of the state by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen.
The protesters who blocked the Owukpa section of the 9th mile/ Makurdi expressway are demanding immediate action against the killer herdsmen who have brought unprecedented violence and misery to the people of Benue State blocked the road leaving travelers stranded.
The protest according to the youths stems from the violent kidnap of female traders from the town situated in Ogbadigbo Local Government Area of the state who were returning from Orba Market in Enugu State on Sunday.
According to the youth the herdsmen abducted the women who were travelling in a Benue Links bus and took them away into the forest and no contact has been made since Sunday night.
Benue State has come under the siege of the marauding armed herdsmen who on weekly basis unleash attacks on farmers and other dwellers in different parts of the North Central State.
In what seemed like a coordinated action, the attackers swooped in on Tyoshin community in Naka, the headquarters of Gwer West LGA on the same Sunday night killed and abducted a yet to be determined number of residents. Survivors lamented that the attackers came in the night and wreaked havoc on the villages .
Earlier on Sunday afternoon, the armed herdsmen also unleashed similar attack on Edikwu Ankpali in Apa LGA where several people were reported to have been killed while farm produce were carted away.
A resident of Markurdi, Harmen Akasi told FACTSHEET that the “Fulani herdsmen are carrying out this attacks because they don’t want our people to plant their crops in this planting season so that the land will be left for them to graze their cattle and the government of the state is already overwhelmed,”
According to Akasi, “only the federal government can restore security in Benue State. The federal government has all the security agencies under its command, the military and other armed forces, so what is really happening?” he rhetorically queried.