By Mike ALADENIKA.
Farmers and residents of 2nd Abumere Ojigbelu Camp in Ovia Northeast Local Government Area of Edo State woke up, over the weekend, to an unusual sight of armed herders, some dressed in military uniforms, directing then to evict their farms and homes and forcefully taking over their produce as source of feeding their cattles.
Some of the villagers who were able to run for their lives but currently taking refugee in other communities around Okada narrate their ordeal saying "Infact I'm short of words to explain what I witnessed yesterday in our community.
According to one of the victims Mr. Mattu Alli, from Taraba State, I have been here for the past 20 years with my family farming. I was in my compound with my family having good time when we heard the sound of gun shots and people running to different directions, I saw one Benin man running towards my compound i ask him where he was running to, he said Herdsmen have taken over the village chasing people away from their homes.
"So I called my wife and we have to run for our lives. I did not see my children, every one of us ran in different directions. As I speak to you now, I don't know the whereabouts of my wife and children".
"Another thing that put fears into our minds is that one of the Fulani Herdsmen pointed gun at me and said "look man we are for peace, we would only kill you people if you refuse to allow our cows to feed on your crops. The yams you people have are for our cows, the cassava and all that you have are for our cows. If you people touch our cows we will kill everybody in this village
For us to be save we ran to the next community."
Another victim who also spoke with journalists Mr. Sunday Chimen, said "I have been in this village for over 20 years, farming. what we saw yesterday surprised us, suddenly we heard gun shots and people running, we later discovered that Fulani Herdsmen have taking over our community with sophisticated AK 47 and threatening to kill us if we didn't cooperate with them for us to be alive, we decided to run for our dear lives leaving our properties with our children running to unknown place".
"We are calling on the security agencies to come to.our aid as our community is under siege."
An affected woman Mrs.Ngozi Chimen said "The nefarious activities of these Fulani Herdsmen have been on in our community since the last two months, they enter into our farms put our plantain to feed their cows. Chase us away from farms. You dear not look at their faces. Some of them were in Army Uniforms.
"Just on the 2nd of January 2022, they invaded our village and chase everybody away. We need help, we need security, we need government assistant."
SPARKNEWSNAIJA authoritatively gathered that Edo state government has directed the police and other security agencies to move in and immediately arrest the situation with a view to restoring peace and returning the people to their homes unmolested.
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