Pandemonium ensued in the Tyotyu community of Tarka Local Government Area of Benue State, after unknown gunmen attacked the town in an early morning raid.
Not a few houses were set ablaze and property worth millions of naira carted off by the gunmen during the attack on the town located on the Makurdi-Gboko federal highway.
The community is in Tongov council ward, the homestead of the leader of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Benue State, Senator George Akume.
The attack was carried out in the wee hours of last Sunday.
The traditional ruler of Tongov council ward, Mbakor, Chief Toryila Bo, said that his subjects were fast asleep when they suddenly heard sporadic gunshots. He said: “As they peeped out to see what the situation was all about, they saw that about 20 armed youths had taken over the highway. Some of them were seen setting houses and Tyotyu Market ablaze, while others carted away goats, mattresses and anything they could lay their hands on.
Chief Bo said: “We were not anticipating any attack, hence, we ran for our dear life, leaving our property and personal belongings at the mercy of the gunmen.”
He explained that men of a police division in Tarka did not respond to their distress call on the excuse that it rained, which was untrue.
Chief Bo said that the attack was the third on the community since the 2015 general election. He fingered next door neighbours, called Ihyarev (a group among the Tivs), Uvir, and Baa village for the sustained attacked.
The traditional ruler traced the crisis to the 2015 general election when their next door community (Uvir) asked the Kparev people, another group among the Tiv described as settlers, to vacate the area, so that if their son, who was then a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, won the election, he would set up a company for them on the land.
“Since Kparev people (another group among Tivs) were sacked from the area, some of them bought land in Tyotyu and build their houses and are living with their family happily, and their neighbours who drove them away are not happy that we accommodated them,” said Chief Bo.
He expressed shock that while Fulani herdsmen kill Tiv people and burn their houses on daily basis, a Tiv man calls another ‘settler’, kills him and sets his house ablaze. He urged Governor Samuel Ortom to wade into the matter and put an end to it once and for all.
A youth leader in Tarka, Justice Anzembe, also called on Gov Ortom to order the return of those sacked from Uvir village because no one had the right to send another away from a land that belonged to the state government.
Anzembe said that the perpetrators were emboldened because they had carried out a similar attack in Kparev community and got away with it.
At press time, residents of Tyotyu were seen moving their property to safety, while the police spokesman could not be reached for comment as his mobile telephone lines were switched off.
