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From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
For many years now, Benue people have continued to suffer hardship in the hands of suspected herdsmen who invade their ancestral homes, kill, main and destroy their livelihoods. This has continued unabated, with successive administrations, starting from Governor George Akume to Gabriel Suswam and now to Samuel Ortom, having to grapple with the situation without any tangible respite.
The incessant attacks came to a peak in January 2018 when herdsmen staged simultaneous attacks on several communities in Logo, Guma and Makurdi local government areas of the state, killing no fewer than 73 persons within hours.
Following the development, Ortom, who had to bury 73 corpses in one day after just being in office for about two and half years, cried out to the Federal Government and the international community for help.
When the attacks continued, the governor who had in 2017 accented to the law enacted by the House of Assembly banning open grazing, insisted that ranching was the only way to go. The law, tagged Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, 2017, according to the governor, was actually a win-win strategy for crop farmers and herders, as it was to ensure a peaceful coexistence.
But efforts to get the herders to understand the law in that light failed and the attacks continued, leaving hundreds of Benue people dead, many maimed and millions running away from their ancestral lands and relocating to internally displaced persons (IDPs) camps across the state.
Only recently, the secretary of the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA), Dr. Emmanuel Shior, disclosed that the number of IDPs in the state was close to two million. He lamented that the humanitarian situation was taking a toll on the lean resources of state government as it grapples with having to cater for the IDPs.
Ortom had many times lamented that the N10 billion the Federal Government promised when Vice President Yemi Osinbajo visited the state in 2018 was yet to be given to the state. The governor had also claimed that the Federal Government prevented donor agencies who were willing to assist the state from doing so but, instead, directed such assistance to the North-East.
And when hopes of getting any tangible assistance from the Federal Government continued to fade by the day, Ortom started looking elsewhere for help by calling on well-meaning individuals, organisations and the international community to come to the aid of the state to help the IDPs return to their homes.
One of such calls yielded results recently when the Victim Support Foundation (VSF), established by former Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Theophilus Y. Danjuma (retd.), indicated its readiness to invest over N1 billion in the rebuilding of six local government areas of Benue State that were affected by insurgency.
The foundation led a team to the state recently to deliver this cheery message and went ahead to commence work immediately by visiting some IDP camps in the affected LGAs.
Speaking during the kick-off of the VSF Benue State 2022 Emergency Support Programme at the Ortese IDP camp, in Guma LGA, director of the VSF, Mrs. Naba Tanko, said they had come because of the governor’s persistent calls for support from VSF.
Tanko said: “Governor Ortom was about the first governors from the North Central zone affected by the attacks to reach out to the VSF, which shows your concern for your people.
“Anytime you wrote to us, the chairman, Gen. T.Y. Danjuma, always asked the VSF to respond with dispatch. That shows the goodwill that you have. And we have responded at three different levels.
“I had a personal experience after going round three LGAs, including, Guma, Logo and Agatu. We hear a lot of the destruction perpetrated by the herdsmen but nobody can really understand until you are on ground. The level of destruction is incredible. We went into communities that were completely deserted and taken over by animals.”
On his part, team lead, Benue State Emergency Support Programme, VSF, Mrs. Toyosi Akerele-Ogunsiji, who decried the serious humanitarian challenge being faced by the Benue state government, explained that it was for that reason that the VSF was intervening: “We are using this opportunity to call on well-meaning Nigerians and very responsible private sector organisations to come to the aid of Benue State. The state is ready to absorb and accept support from all over the world to ensure that it continues to contribute to the food security of Nigeria and Africa.”
She added that the VSF programme was focusing on seven key areas, including, food distribution, health and medical facilities.
“We are setting up six health centres in six primary healthcare centres across the state. We are giving medicines, stretchers, ambulances, wheel chairs, face masks, hand sanitizers and everything that the regular primary healthcare centre needs to respond to an emergency situation.
“Apart from food and medicals, we are also going to provide economic empowerment support to the tune of N180 million, so that women and men as well as young people will be empowered to start up small businesses and become self-sufficient, so that they will not need to depend on anybody to give them food. We are going to give the IDPs the tools of the trade they need to have some of the biggest SMEs. Besides, we are also setting up an education support programme for children in the camps.
“In addition to that, we are going to set up shelters for the IDPs. We are aware that the rainy season is coming and we have been here at Ortese and other camps and we are going to other camps in Oju, Ado and others, because we are going to make sure that the most affected, vulnerable households in Benue are supported.”
Akerele-Ogunsiji stated that, by the time the programme is completed in six months, it would have touched practically every household of the over 1.5 million IDPs in the state.
“I do not know of any other programme like this in Nigeria today. We understand the trauma these victims have gone through. So, we will be setting up psychosocial support awareness programme to help the people who have lost loved ones. We will take them through programmes to help them renew their minds as we prepare to set up business for them, which we are starting in May,” she said.
Some of the elated IDPs, who spoke with our correspondent at the Ortese camp, including Dooga Joseph, Igbalumun Mary and Tersoo Jande, expressed joy that, at last, there was hope of returning to their ancestral homes.
“There’s no place like home at all. In as much as the state government and well-meaning individuals have continued to come to our aid in terms of providing food and other needs, we look forward to the day we can return to our ancestral land and continue with our normal business as it used to be,” Jande said.
