Amid renewed attacks in Benue, Governor Father Hyacinth Alia, has said that the state needs help amid the killings by bandits, not a state of emergency declaration.
Speaking on a televised interview on Wednesday, Alia clarified that while the insecurity in Benue was not too much for him to handle, the federal government’s intervention was also needed to tackle the crisis.
While expressing his administration’s ability to halt the killings, Alia added that he needs additional support to drive killer herders out of the state.
“What we need is emergency help for now. We need absolute support. The federal government is supported. They sent two armoured tanks that came in.
“Our situation had changed. We had a better narrative, but what we need to do is to get our people back home, to drive out the invaders, the armed invaders who have brought in people who do not even speak the Nigerian languages we speak.
“Let them move back to wherever they came from and allow us farmers to go back to our ancestral land. Calling for any emergency does not occur here,” Alia said.
According to the governor, intelligence from locals suggests the attackers may be foreign nationals.
“It’s 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.
“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’s now alarming,” the governor said.
Governor Alia explained that this marked a new and more dangerous phase of violence compared to previous confrontations with traditional herders.
