North-Central communities where farmers harvest more corpses than crops

 

Farmlands in many Northcentral states have become places for harvesting dead bodies instead of crops. From time to time, fresh or decomposing corpses of farmers allegedly killed by murderous herdsmen litter the farms, scaring others from carrying out their legitimate business. The ugly trend is said to be taking a turn for the worse every passing day following the failure of the relevant authorities to give it the necessary attention

MRS Miriam Terwase, a native of Tse Aban in Tombo Council Ward, Logo Local Government Area, Benue State, gladly left home on April 29 in the company of her third child to apply herbicide and salvage whatever was left on her groundnut farm.

As they moved around the farm, the young boy plucked edible fruits at intervals, lovingly putting some in his mother’s mouth because she could not hold them with her soiled hands.

“Mummy, please let us also pluck some vegetables so you can make that delicious soup you usually make for us,” the boy requested while the mother nodded with smiles. Elated by the mother’s positive response, he ran to give her a warm hug which, unknown to him, would be his last for the mother.

Towards the end of the herbicide application exercise, a murderous, haggard-looking herdsman appeared from nowhere and attacked Miriam with a sharp knife. Her efforts and the son’s attempts to ward off the assailant failed to save her life and she was heartlessly murdered before her son. Her corpse was later recovered and deposited in the mortuary of NKST Hospital, Anyiin.

“I buried her at the weekend. She was my younger sister,” Miriam’s brother,  Jeyol Jeremiah Hilenen, said as he recalled how his beloved sister was murdered.

Jeyol, a personal aide to the council chairman on security matters, is responsible for mobilising and alerting the joint security operatives in the area on security threats in any part of the local government area. He was also responsible for taking our correspondent round the highly volatile area when he visited.

“She had five children. She was murdered right in front of her third child. The poor boy personally witnessed how his mother was hacked to death.  He tried to help the mother but he was too small to do that. The herder mounted the mother and was stabbing her. The boy took a cutlass and hit the herder on the head.

“The guy rose and moved to also attack the boy and he ran away.  He saw everything. He watched the mother killed by the herder. The boy is highly traumatised now.  He will never forget that experience.

“He is living in an internally displaced persons’ camp now. It is very pathetic. If this is allowed to continue, how are we sure that some of us will still live?”

Apart from the mother of five, two other farmers, according to Jeyol, were also killed in different farms that same day.

Miriam’s case is just one out of the numerous incidents of mindless killing of farmers, male and female, in different parts of Benue and some other Northcentral states.

Across rural farmlands in states like Benue, Plateau, Niger and Kaduna, killer herdsmen are said to have brazenly slaughtered and spilled the blood of harmless farmers. The bestial and barbaric practice, checks revealed, has caused many farmers to flee their farms.

The consequence, according to findings, is yawning food scarcity and famine in most of the communities that hitherto farmed and produced the food eaten not only in the affected communities and their states but across the country.

“Here, it is obvious we are going to have a food crisis,” Iorgba Terkura, a frontline farmer in Logo who had two of his farmer in-laws killed just on Tuesday, said.

“We have a peculiar case here; a case that the federal government is not even helping matters about. People cannot go to their farms. The little that our people have planted they cannot go and harvest.

“Three of the people killed on Tuesday were my in-laws and they were farmers. At times, the herders would stand by the road, catch our women who are going to fish rivers, rape them, collect their money and phone and ask them to go.

“At times, they would beat and wound them. Farms are no-go areas here in Logo.”

Umishi Manasseh, a native of Tombo Ward in Logo, has lost a number of his farmer relations to the inhuman activities of the herders with the latest being that of Tuesday. Manasseh regretted that farmers were leaving the villages in droves to settle in Ayilamo town.

He said: “Coker Dada, a relation of mine and a  farmer, was killed on Tuesday. The rural communities are prone to attacks because there is no security there. The killings have instilled fears in our people.

“I am very annoyed about the killings. It is unfortunate that there is nothing we can do about it. We have no weapons or help from anywhere.

“How can we confront people who are carrying sophisticated weapons?  We are only looking forward to the government for necessary assistance.

“The situation is actually out of hand.”

Aside from Logo, the killer herdsmen, according to findings, have also turned farmlands in other places like Agatu and Guma into slaughter slabs.

A leading farmer and community leader in Agatu, Hon Bawa Haruna, said: The elder brother of the Commissioner for Information was killed on his farm. Two other persons were also killed. Even a woman was among them.

“The woman went to the farm and when the children did not see her around 4 pm, they went searching for her. They later found her body on the farm. She was butchered by herdsmen like an animal for just no reason.

“People were scared of going to the farm within that period because if by late afternoon you are still in the farm, you are a dead person.”

Farmlands as killing fields in Niger, Plateau

The callousness of killer herdsmen in states like Niger and Plateau is said to be unparalleled.

In Niger State, numerous farmers are said to have been killed with some others narrowly escaping with their hands chopped off.

“Life has been challenging since we are not going to farm,” Talati Galadima, a rice and maize farmer based in the Rijau area of Niger State told our correspondent.

She continued: “The bandits have killed many people. And when I say many, I mean uncountable. The attacks are going on in virtually all the farms here in Niger State. I have colleagues that have been killed.

“Banditry is not allowing us to go to the farm. If they meet people on the farm, they will cut their hands and say didn’t they warn them that they should not farm again?

“Last year, some people managed to farm. But when they harvested the crops, the bandits came and burnt everything. They even went to the houses of people who had taken their produce home and burnt them.

“My farmland is five hectares. Many farmers here in Rijau were killed. We went to the farm and saw dead bodies. When we see dead bodies we will run away.

“At times when we are on the farm and we hear that bandits are coming through the neighbouring community, we would quickly leave the farm.

“The bandits kill everybody they come across. They kill females and males including children and adults. They also rape women and steal our goats and cows.

“At times, they would kill our chicken, cook and eat it there. Sometimes, they will ask their captives to cook for them, and after cooking for them, the bandits will seize all their valuables and leave.”

It was also a gale of horrible tales when our correspondent encountered farmers in Bassa Local Government Area of Plateau State. Majority of the farmers had fled ttheir villages and sought refuge in the towns where they were more or less idle.

Kwa David, a farmer in Pathudu community in Jebu Miango, was close to tears as he shared stories of how his fellow farmers were murdered in cold blood while carrying out their legitimate duties.

He said: “The herders have killed many farmers in our place. They killed some like John and Danladi who were my friends.

“The herders even kill women. I remember they killed Laraba, a relation. She was killed on the farm.

“Such unpleasant development puts fear in our minds and prevents us from going to the farm.”

National Vice President of Irigwe Youth Movement and frontline farmer in Miango District, Mr Ishaya  Mali, was palpably disturbed by the endless killings on their farms when he spoke with the reporter.

He said: “Many of our people have been killed right inside their farms.

“There are fears in our people about going to the farm.

“The herders will come grazing by your side and the next thing, they will kill you and run away.”

Going back memory lane, he said: “A neighbour was harvesting his carrot and moving it to where a car would come and move them to the town.

“When he went back to take the last batch of bags, he met some herders on the farm. They chatted and before he knew it, they killed him and ran away.

“We have people that went for irrigation farming. When one of them was coming out, some herders hiding inside a maize farm where he wanted to go and cultivate attacked and killed him.

“You can go to the farm and on your way home get ambushed and killed.”

The Chairman of Humanitarian Response Team for all the attacks in the area, Gastor Barriet, recalled that the attacks began more than 20 years ago when herdsmen would just enter a community and kill the people.

“But destruction of farms started around 2017 when the attacks took an entirely new dimension,” he said.

By 2018, Gastor said, the attacks peaked, adding: “They entered and chopped down  farms running into several hectares. They would spend a whole night to do that.

“Last year, about 18 communities lost all their farms because the herders entered with their cattle and grazed on all the farmlands.

“It is either they chop the crops down or they use their cattle to graze on the farms.

“They have killed many farmers they met on the farms. They kill farmers both in wet and dry seasons.  They kill males and females alike.

“This has been affecting food supply in our communities.  It has really, really, really affected food supply.

“Like I said earlier, about 18 communities lost all their farmlands when the cattle grazed on them last year. This year, people can no longer go back to those communities to farm.”

Regretting that the menace is worsening food insecurity in the area, he said: “In fact, there is famine in our communities because people could not farm last year, and this year too, most people have not been able to farm.

“Again, when the herders attack, they also burn down food barns and stores. There is famine as I speak to you. People are struggling to feed.

“The herders attacked on Thursday, killing many people. As at this morning (Friday), about seven corpses have been recovered.

“One of the women died in the hospital. I think about two or three people were injured. The herders even called towards this morning that they are coming back in the afternoon.

“We don’t have a government in this country.  The attackers are well armed. Sponsorship is not their problem.

“The least you can do here is to defend yourself. Even if you try to arm yourself, where do you get the guns in large quantities?

“The weapons the herders are using are even more sophisticated than those of our security agencies.”

The Councillor representing Taagbe Ward in  Bassa Local Government Area, Hon. Daro Adams Ruvo, told our correspondent that “farmers in some areas here don’t go to the farm because of the menace of herders.

“I was just coming from Jos now and I saw them on the farms and even around the houses, grazing.

“In a particular village, the herders don’t allow anybody to stay there. They have displaced those farmers now.”

Farmers traumatised by sights of decomposing corpses

Besides the pangs of hunger,  it was learnt that the lives of many farmers have also been made miserable with regular sight of decomposing  corpses they find on their way.

According to Jeyol, “we have at different times seen decomposing bodies of victims on the farms.

“There were killings that were not known until search parties went out and found the decomposing bodies.

“There were people who went to farm without the knowledge of any other person. The herders met them there and murdered them.

“In the course of trying to escape from killer herders, some farmers entered into hidden places where they were eventually killed.

“It is the stench from their decomposing bodies that makes relations or other people to know the exact place a body is.

“Sometimes, the herders will murder people and hide their corpse so that nobody will see their remains.

“There was the case of somebody they murdered, hanged his body on a tree and tied him face down.

“They sharpened a stick and forced it through his anus up to his chest. Look at that kind of wickedness.

“There are many of the farms that you cannot dare go close to.”

Explaining why they are avoiding reprisal attacks against the attackers, Jeyol said: “We don’t really want to take up arms against them.  We have never gunned down any of them.

“We have security agencies with us and they keep warning and urging us to remain calm so that they can focus their attention on the herders.

“If we also start attacking the herders, it will become difficult for them to control the situation.”

In the Bassa area of Plateau State, Kwa David said: “I have seen dead bodies on the farm.

“On one occasion, I heard gunshots and had to leave my house to know what was happening. On getting to the farm, I saw dead bodies. That drove fear into me and made me not to go to the farm again.”

His kinsman, Ishaya, also said: “I have been seeing dead bodies on the farm. I saw about three fresh corpses recently.”

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