EMBOLDENED by the absence of a determined push-back from the federal security forces, armed Fulani herdsmen and militants are carving a blood-soaked path across the country. From the North-Central, Southern Kaduna in the North-West, and Taraba in the North-East, they have stepped up their rapine in the South-East and South-South and raised the stakes in the kidnapping-for-ransom ‘business’ in the South-West. The upsurge in herdsmen impunity is one of the negative enduring features of the regime of the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd.). In the five months left for him to quit office, he should mobilise the full coercive powers of the state to halt the criminality.
The herdsmen/militias are shedding innocent blood and destroying property across Nigeria. They are also raking in hundreds of millions of naira in ransom from kidnapping. Ubiquitous, they occupy the forests from where they emerge, cause mayhem, and thereafter retreat to. Their bloody enterprise started decades ago, but on Buhari’s watch, they have multiplied in number, frequency of attacks and impunity.
In Enugu State in December, several residents died in Ebor, Eha-Amufu community in Isi-Uzo Local Government Area, when armed herdsmen invaded the community. Residents said 10 bodies were recovered from the farms, among them,those of an aged couple who were kidnapped and their mutilated bodies found two weeks later.
Another attack in Ebor and Umjiovu communities claimed 25 lives according to the residents, though the Enugu State Police Command confirmed only four persons killed.
source.....PUNCH NG
