AFTERMATH OF THE BENUE GENOCIDE

Benue State was known for peace and love and was a home to every visitor including tourists who at one time or the other visiting Benue State for business and holidays. Benue is one State that is ranked amongs many States in the area of level free cultural and religious activities. Today Benue State is a State that has not seen peace for the past years which all indications points to doing good and allowing non tribes have a freedom of expression, marketing and association. Benue people have been repeatedly handed insults of all kinds from visitors due to their good attitude of receiving every one who come asking or seeking to have a land or place to settle and was or is given, it is only in Benue State that an Igbo man will buy land and build after which the owner will allow only the Igbos to occupy by screening the Tiv people who wants to pay rent out. But as peace loving people Benue man who build his house for rent will rather prefer a non tribe to occupy such houses and still the Benue people keep receiving all insults from both left and right. Today the crisis in Benue on cattle Herders clashes against Farmers is something that has gone beyond the shores of Benue alone, This crisis has engulf so many States who have share or have received and have settled with the Fulani people over years. Now the crisis of killing both children, women with pregnancy and both old and young men alike is a clear sign of the worst form of genocide and a sign that the aftermath of this crisis will have an everlasting scar on the soil and in the minds of the Benue people and Nigerians who have lost their loved ones in the same Herders attacks. Its indeed very clear that many farm lands have been destroyed by the Fulani Herders and many people have been displaced in their ancestral homes who now have been forced to live in IDP Camps with all other surviving families. Statistics have shown that, more than (40,000) forty thousand children, women and men have become homeless in Benue State during the Guma, Logo and Okpokwu attacks. This is a clear sign that there is going to be a great shortage of food in the next following years if government did not work a plan on supporting on aiding this people who have been displaced out of their homes. Government must devise ways to redress the challenge of children education and health care challenges were most of the children have become war rats feeding on highly insecure mills and eating contaminated foods and drinking bad water. This is a sign that ten years from now many young children who would have been out of school but were trapped by the crisis will be behind their mates who may already graduate from high institutions and possibly all the children feeding on such unhygienic food in IDP are liable to fall sick or die before the ages of 40 years or below. The poor feeding and poor health care on this children who looks malnourished all time may be a pointer to their deteriorating health and fast death in all IDP Camps across Benue State. Now that the entire Benue poeple are living under the fear of unknown and the mercy of God many of this people who have seen this crisis and have survived may not be happy going back to their homes due to some further unexpected attacks from their old enemies who have sworn to rain hell on Benue people. The danger and the aftermath of war or any crisis can never be tackled in a day, the Farm/Headers crisis must be addressed once and for all.