Terseer Ugbor, the member representing Kwande/Ushongo Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives, has stated that communities in Benue State will have to devise ways to defend themselves against their attackers in the face of rising insecurity.
The Chief of Defence Staff and the Inspector General of Police paid a visit to the Yelwata community on Monday, following the killings last Friday.
According to the lawmaker, during a recent interview, Benue has long lacked a local security force to defend against attacks.
“You see, the DG of the DSS publicly said communities will have to come up with self-defence mechanisms. Communities will have to defend themselves. “Communities will have to come up with vigilantes and other systems where you can protect your communities,” the lawmaker said.
“This is what Benue needs to do. For a long time, as I said, Benue did not have a militia. Benue has had several attempts to set up a state security apparatus; the former governor, (Samuel) Ortom, did that with the anti-open grazing law.
“Then this government came in and set up their own volunteer guards, ‘Anyam Nyor’. Unfortunately, we’ve not seen much of the impact of ‘Anyam Nyor’ in Benue. So we’ve not been able to set up a good security architecture to protect our communities in Benue. We’ve just not been able to,” he added.
Ugbor noted that the military formations currently in Benue are for peacekeeping rather than for combat.
He, therefore, called on the Nigerian military to go on the offensive to end the killings.
“The military formations in Benue are there for peacekeeping. I interact with them at the grassroots level, and I know their mindset. They’re not there to open fire on any group of people. They’re not there to go all out and open fire on the Fulani, open fire on the Tiv people, or any other tribe in Benue; they are there to maintain the peace,” he said.
“And because of that, when these people come and attack, they attack and they retreat. The security presence is not there; it doesn’t have the mandate to pursue them across state lines and go and attack them in another state.
“That is not the mandate of the security in Benue. But right now, with this situation, the military needs to go on the offensive. If not, this problem will not stop,” Ugbor added.
