Jonathan Nwokpor
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The Bonta village in Konshisha Local Government and the Ukpute community in Oju Local Government Areas of Benue State are experiencing a worsening communal strife.
ZINGTIE remembers that on Easter Monday of 2021, a contested land dispute between the two neighboring towns took countless lives and properties, including the lives of twelve military troops. The conflict has left the communities deep in distress.
On Monday, information surfaced that armed militias from the Bonta village had closed a main route that connected Oju and Makurdi, preventing any member of the Igede tribe from reaching the state capital.
The Oju and Obi Local Government areas are home to the Igede tribe, which is the third largest tribe in Benue State.
The existence of armed militias on the road has, according to Dr. John Ogi, a senior lecturer at Benue State University, “disconnected Igede from other parts of the state,” ZINGTIE was informed on Tuesday.
Ogi emphasized that it was currently hard to transport products and services from the Igede territory to other regions of the state.
A “journey of 2 hours from Oju to Makurdi now takes 7 hours,” he emphasized, adding that the only other route from Oju is the severely damaged Otukpo road.
The professor said that in July 2024, the militias had taken control of “two trailers of fertilizers distributed by the federal government to Oju/Obi Federal constituency.”
According to ZINGTIE, Governor Hyacinth Alia recently claimed that there was a modicum of peace between the warring groups and insisted that the administration was making a lot of effort to find a solution.
ZINGTIE’s attempts to contact the state police command for a response were unsuccessful since Catherine Sewuese, the Police Public Relations Officer, was unavailable.
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