The Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, has pointed the finger at gunmen from outside Nigeria as the perpetrators of the attacks on communities across the state.
Alia claimed that the perpetrators of the recent wave of killings across the state were foreigners who came into the country through the porous borders.
He said that the perpetrators of the attacks on different communities in the state did not speak familiar languages.
Accord8ng to him, they exhibited characteristics that did not conform with any tribe in the country, an indication that the gunmen were foreigners who disguised themselves as Nigerian to attack the residents.
This disclosure came barely 24 hours after the death toll from the attacks perpetrated across the state hit 74, with dozens of others down with varying degrees of injury.
He disclosed this on Tuesday while speaking as a guest on a popular television programme in the wake of assaults on the North-Central state that have left scores killed and many displaced.
“Let us have the narrative very correct. We know Nigerians—by our ethnicities, we can identify a Fulani man, a Yoruba man, a Hausa man—we know them. Even the regular traditional herders, we know them. They work with cows, herding with sticks,” Alia said.
“But these folks (the attackers) are coming in fully armed with AK-47s and 49s. They do not bear the Nigerian look. They don’t speak like we do. Even the Hausa they speak is one sort of Hausa.
“It is not the normal Hausa we Nigerians speak. So it is with the Fulani they speak. There is a trend in the language they speak, and some of our people who understand what they speak give it names. They say they are Malians and different from our people. But they are not Nigerians—believe it,” he added.
Alia explained that this marked a new and more dangerous phase of violence compared to previous confrontations with traditional herders.
“This is the second phase we are seeing. The initial ones were with the traditional herders. The traditional herders—we had fewer troubles with them. What we are experiencing has a new, different, strange face, and it is now alarming,” the governor said.
“These terrorists are everywhere. We are under a siege. These people just come and hit and kill and run back. Where are they running to?”
He further disclosed that the attacks appeared highly coordinated and strategically executed.
“The way these killings are being planned and carried out is definitely coordinated,” he noted.
“Some local government areas in Benue share borders with Cameroon, and those borders are quite porous,” he stated.
The governor also said intelligence reports point to the existence of terrorist hideouts in parts of Taraba and Nasarawa states, as well as in areas within Cameroon.
“The terrorists have their own havens in Taraba, Nasarawa, and in border regions of Cameroon,” Alia stated.
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