BY: News Peddlers
The member
representing the Ussa State Constituency in the Taraba State House of Assembly,
Habila Anderifun, said at least 60 people had been killed and thousands
displaced in recent attacks on communities in Ussa, Takum and Yangtu Special
Development Area by suspected herdsmen.
Anderifun,
who disclosed this at a press conference on Saturday, in Jalingo, said the
communities had come under coordinated and sustained attacks by suspected
Fulani herdsmen who had dislodged thousands of people from their ancestral homes
and forced them into Internally Displaced Persons’ camps, Punch reports.
The
lawmaker, who likened the invasion and occupation of Ussa land by armed Fulani
group and the atrocities being committed, to the Russian invasion of Ukraine
and the war crimes being committed in Ukraine, decried the killings and
mutilation of dead bodies by the attackers.
According to the lawmaker, six soldiers, including the
Commanding Officer of Ada Barracks Takum, were killed by the suspected armed
Fulani bandits in the area and he wondered why the Federal Government had not
deemed it fit to take the war to the armed bandits terrorising the people of
the area.
“The
situation in Ussa is terribly bad and we would bring out documentary evidence
to support our claims at the right time. For now, we want the United Nations
(UN) and the international community to turn their attention to ongoing
killings, which can be likened to genocide, in Ussa and parts of Takum and
Yangtu, which is capable of wiping the entire people out of the map of Nigeria.
“The killings and mutilation of the bodies of the victims in
Ussa constitute a crime against humanity and we urge the federal government to
take urgent steps to end these senseless killings because it is the primary
responsibility of the government to protect the lives and property of her
citizens anywhere in this country.
“We are documenting carefully all that is going on in the
area and failure to end the killings we shall not hesitate to take legitimate
and lawful means to seek justice for the people of Ussa.
“Reports
from these communities indicate that the deserted communities have been taken
over by Fulani herdsmen who now graze freely on people’s farms and homes.”
He called on the National Emergency Management Agency, the State
Emergency Management Agency and other aid organisations and spirited
individuals to intervene in the provision of shelter, protection, water, food
and non-food relief items to address the growing humanitarian needs of the
IDPs.
This is as he called on the state government to set up a Commission of Inquiry to investigate the remote and immediate causes of the crisis with the view to finding a lasting solution to the conflict.
Anderifun added, “This is very important because the Fulanis
and the Kutebs have been living peacefully with each other over the decades
until the recent ugly development. This could be the hand of Esau but the voice
of Jacob,” he said.
SOURCE: PUNCH