A member representing Logo Constituency in Benue House of Assembly, Hon. Terna-Kester Kyenge, on Saturday urged the Federal Government to declare violent Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and also treat them as such.
His appeal was contained in a statement that he issued to The Nation in Abuja, demanding the State and Federal Government to declare a two-day of national mourning of the victims that the Fulani herdsmen allegedly massacred in the state.
He asked the President Muhammadu Buhari to deploy sufficient security personnel in the effected areas to forestall any re-occurrence of the onslaught and make the perpetrators to face the law.
His words: “We are in deed in a State of Emergency and I demand that the Benue State and Federal governments declare 2 days of national mourning and move decisively and with utmost dispatch as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari to deploy sufficient security personnel in the effected areas to forestall any repeat of these attacks and for once arrest and bring perpetrators to justice.
“We also demand that the Federal Government declare Fulani herdsmen perpetrating violence against farmers across the country as terrorists and treat them as such.”
Kyenge titled his dirge and tears invoking statement : “May the blood and tears of victims of suspected herdsmen attack in Benue not flow in vain.”
According to him, like the killers, his massacred people and all humans have the right to live.
Calling on the global community to help guarantee the lives of his people, the lawmaker pointed out that their right to live is guaranteed under the Nigerian law and universal charter of human rights.
He insisted that “We will from this day not hold our peace and die in silence any longer, but will tell to the whole world our agony and the terror visited on us by a force propelled solely towards our destruction.
“Reason and justice may not appeal to the herdsmen hacking our people to death with such wanton abandon, but we will cry out to the world and show our wounds for all to see. Then, perhaps, then will the blood of our fallen loved ones and our tears not flow in vain.”
He said that as a representative of his people he appreciates that every single death diminishes them collectively.
He added that “I am impoverished and have never felt this damned and unsettled as continuously hapless constituents are hounded, villages razed and ancestral farm lands sacked while government gropes endlessly for solutions.”
The statement reads in part: “From Tse Akenawe, to Tse Verinumbe, to Tse Orveren, to Jootar, to Tyogbenda Anyiin communities in Gambe-Tiev, Logo to Tomatar near Tse Abi, Nongov in Guma Local Government Areas, it has been sustained attacks and killings as the statistics swell with daily harvest of tons of corpses from surrounding environs.
“These settlements have been reduced to ghost habitations with huge numbers of displaced old, women and children trekking aimlessly with neither food, water nor shelter.
“This is in deed one invasion too many, and the deafening silence hovering over it from the top must be broken now and for good.
“Once again, as I commiserate with HE Samuel Ortom and the government and peace loving people of Benue State and particularly helpless Logo State Constituents in our season of collective grief and great loss, I pledge on my oath that I will not relent in my resolve to fight to get justice for my constituents. I will continue to collaborate with agencies and actors of government to bring lasting peace and succor to my people.”
