The Agatu people of Benue State, under the aegis of Agatu Network Forum, have called on the Federal Government to protect them, saying they have lost 378 persons in two years to attacks by Fulani herdsmen from Nasarawa State.
About 94 people were killed in Egba community on March 15, 2015 by suspected Fulani herdsmen who also destroyed valuable property and farmland.
Chairman, Agatu Network Forum, Chris Enechie, told journalists in Abuja on Thursday that the attacks by Fulani herdsmen had displaced 15,760 Agatu indigenes while 1,317 homes had been destroyed.
According to Enechie, 1,480 livestock have been lost, with 142 motorcycles and 17 vehicles destroyed during the incessant attacks on various Agatu communities, including Okokolo, Egba, Obagaji, Usha, and Ogwule Kaduna.
The Agatu leader explained that other communities such as Oshugbudu, Enugba, and Ogwule Ogbaulu, had also suffered devastating attacks from the marauders, whom he said wanted to drive the indigenous people from their ancestral homes.
Enechie demanded for the establishment of a military post in Agatuland to protect the people from attacks, adding that the people could no longer cultivate their farmland for fear of being killed.
He said, “We have been asking ourselves if we are not bonafide citizens of Nigeria. Why we cannot farm in peace and hope to harvest our crops without the herdsmen’ cattle destroying our farms and why should we be killed and burnt because we dared to ask why? The Federal Government should protect us because it seems the security issue has gone beyond what the state government can manage.”
Another Agatu leader, Chief Andrew Idako, stated that schools, hospitals and markets are no longer functioning in the affected communities, noting that the Fulani attackers were bent on “turning the Agatu ethnic group to itinerant people like themselves.”
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