Gunmen kill village head, another in Benue

Gunmen have killed a traditional ruler, Chief Hyacinth Ajon, and one Benjamin Anakula at Tse-Zoola, in Makurdi Local Council of Benue State.

Narrating the incident, yesterday, to Governor Samuel Ortom, who was returning from a funeral, the eldest man in the community, Aho Zoola, said the gunmen, without any provocation, attacked the villagers about 2a.m. when the people were fast asleep, and killed the two persons.

When Governor Ortom asked if they had rustled cows in the past, he replied in the negative, insisting that the villagers had never had any issue with the herdsmen, even when their herds graze on their crops.Ortom, after sympathising with the villagers, assured them that he would do everything possible to get security agencies to the area.

IN another development, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), yesterday, lamented Tuesday night’s massacre of no fewer than 30 persons in simultaneous attacks on four villages in two local councils of Zamfara State.

The party also bemoaned the killing of a staff member as well as abduction of 23 students of Greenfield University in Kaduna, the same Tuesday night.

According to the party, it is saddening that bandits and terrorist elements are now holding the nation to ransom “due to the manifest lack of commitment by the Muhammadu Buhari Presidency and the disoriented All Progressives Congress (APC) to decisively confront the situation and secure our country.”

In a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, the PDP noted: “Today, under President Muhammadu Buhari, our nation has become an expansive killing field where terrorists, kidnappers and invaders are having a field day despoiling our communities and killing our compatriots.
This is completely unacceptable!”

The party recalled that it had advised Buhari to conduct a holistic rejigging of national security architecture, “but the President only replaced the faces of the service chiefs, without any attention to serious operational issues, as if the replacement of commanders were the exclusive magic wand for the security challenges facing our nation.”

It said the situation had become too critical and demanding a surgical approach, including amendment to the constitution and other statutes that would allow for an effective community policing system.