By Kolawole Ojebisi
Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, has alleged that prominent politicans in the National Assembly and other eminent people are responsible for instigating the killings and other crises besetting the state.
The governor further alleged that these people who he described as “architects and arrowheads” of Benue crisis also harbour and feed perpetrators of crisis in the state.
Alia spoke during Friday’s ‘Politics Today’ programme on Channels Television.
He described the situation as “very unsettling”, noting that while the politicians in question were interested in fighting for their positions, it behoved him to protect and serve the interests of the masses.
“It is very, very unsettling because top politicians who are very functional and are in the National Assembly and are in Abuja, are the architects and arrowheads of not just instigating, but harbouring and keeping these people and feeding them in the bushes, and taking care of all their needs and buying all the other gadgets for them.
“This is extremely unacceptable. If they do not love the lives of the people and they’re only fighting for their own position, I think I am serving the interest of the common masses and it is a concern to me, and it is my right to protect it,” the governor said.
Although he did not mention the names of any politicians who may be involved, Alia stated that he had set up a judicial panel to investigate the reasons behind the attacks, adding that the report indicted many big names and vowed to take up the matter when he receives the full report.
“We set up a judicial panel to sort out for us why we kept having attacks from within and from without, and we have received an interim report. Between Tuesday and Wednesday next week, I am going to get a full report from the panel.
“So once we receive this report that is coming, we are going to take it up and take it up very seriously. There are quite a lot of big names that are mentioned here, so this is where we are,” he said.
He also declared that the state was “under siege”, adding that he believed that the crisis was some form of terrorism and was beyond ethnic farmer-herder clashes.
“We are under siege. The way these attacks come and the intel we receive, it is a directed, calibrated plan and then executed. Daily, we are receiving that intel. Of late, each of the intel we receive, 60 to 65 per cent of it is quite accurate.
“And then when you realise what is going on, it is beyond just conflict, it is beyond just an ethnic fight between herders and farmers in our state, it is directed, it is planned and then it is executed, it is some terrorism,” he stated.
