Sequel to killings in Gwer-west local government area of Benue State, which led to protest in Naka, headquarters of the council by Youths, Senator Victor Umeh, senator representing Anambra Central on the floor of the senate supported a motion by Senator Titus Tartenger Zam.
Indeed, Senator Umeh called for the establishment of military base in the troubled area.
In an interview with newsmen, Senator Umeh gave details on why he proposed a military base as panacea to the killings in the area.
He also spoke on the efforts of the Anambra state government on the insecurity in the state and the progress made by Governor Charles Soludo, SINL Nigeria Online was there.
Excerpts:
QUE: You called for permanent solution, a military base in Gwer West Local Government Area, what informed your position?
ANS: Well, last week my colleague, Senator Dr. Titus Zam, brought a motion reporting killings of people in his constituency, particularly in Gwer West local government area of Benue State. His motion was not different from numerous motions received in the Senate reporting killings of people by herdsmen. If you have followed my activities in the Senate, I have been very, very always upset with reports of massacre of human lives across Nigeria.
The Gwer West experience is very touching to me. The motion of last Thursday wasn’t the first in this Senate.
About three other times, killings of people by herdsmen have been reported to the Senate, taking place in the Gwer West local government area. But I recall with nostalgia, in 2018 in the Senate, when herdsmen invaded one community and killed 17 people in a morning mass, including the priests. The reverend father celebrating the mass was killed, then 17 worshipers in that morning mass were all killed, making it a total of 19 persons.
At that day, I was in a rage because of the nature of the killings, and I called on Buhari, then president, to send soldiers immediately to that place because killing people in that manner, in a place of worship, should not be tolerated. Otherwise, you spark off religious fights in the country. President Buhari sent soldiers to Benue as I demanded during that debate, and by weekend, they got four people with AK-47 rifles and paraded them as being responsible for the mass murder of those people in the early morning mass worship.
Unfortunately, since then, we have not had anything again. What happened to those four men? They were paraded on a Sunday on television. When this motion came back on Thursday, it became the same local government.
Of all the prayers contained in the motion paper, I did not see any one that went to the root of the problem. These things happen because the people are not defended. They are not protected.
So when headsmen come in with sophisticated rifles, they round them up and kill them without any help. I felt it was not enough to come to the Senate to ask for one minute silence in honour of the dead and calling for relief materials from NEMA or agencies that do humanitarian services. That is not what they need.
What they need is protection of their lives. And if you don’t have security personnel that will ensure that these people are protected and defended, they will continue to be killed. So that was why when they exhausted the prayers in the motion paper, I asked for additional prayer.
And when the Senate President recognized me to put forward the additional prayer, I called for the establishment of a military base in that location. Because the people have been overrun, several in the past, without any challenge. So the only way to ensure protection of the lives of the people of that area, that flank is military base.
Recall, they have continued to kill them, like fowls. So I felt that the people would need a military settlement in that location, so that the people can now sleep, or at least be assured that they cannot be taken on their ways again. So that was why I called for that additional prayer.
And I was happy that the motion was seconded immediately by Dr. Titus Sam, And unanimously, the Senate voted for the establishment of a military base in the Gwer west local government area. If they send soldiers there, and they have a base and a camp on a permanent basis, I believe that this incessant incursion by the herdsmen and killing them either in the night or even during the day will stop.
Otherwise, if such a thing happens again with military presence, then we’ll have to investigate the complicity of the armed forces and what is happening in that flank. That flank has been suffering mass murder over the years. In 2018, 72 people were killed in one day in this very area.
They were killed, and they were given mass burial. And incidentally, the majority of them were Catholics.
So we cannot continue to pretend not to know what to do.
All the places the herdsmen have been on the rampage, killing people recklessly. There must be military bases established there. That is the only way to show seriousness that we want to contain the menace.
QUE: Now that you have proposed a solution, what is the next step to enhance the location of the military base?
ANS: I have forwarded it to the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, he is from there. So he has to join to follow up to ensure that a military base is established in that location.
Because all of them, they are under threat. The SGF is here working in Abuja and they are killing his people. So he must use his influence as a very important person in government to ensure that this resolution is given effect.
That is what he will do for his people. It’s not only construction of roads and building of hospitals or anything that the people need. Security of lives and property remain the first line of responsibility of government.
So I believe he has been worried about this and from the report of Senator Zam, even Senator Zam’s house was destroyed. So this rampage in his place, this additional prayer for the establishment of a military base in that location should come to him as a relief. So it’s what he will now use to ask government to do the needful.
Because that’s the only thing to do. So they are lucky to have the Secretary to the Government of the Federation coming from their place. So we have armed him with this resolution of the Senate for him to approach even the Chief of Army Staff to give that resolution compliance for the sake of his people.
QUE: Specifically how would you ensure that this thing comes to reality?
ANS: We can live in peace in Nigeria with anybody. Whether you are a Tiv, Yoruba, Igbo, Fulani, Hausa, Ishekiri. We can live together.
We are human beings. We are not animals. So everybody values human life.
And if some people pretend that life does not have any meaning to them, they should be told the truth. That is why I was disappointed when I saw on television where one young man from Adamawa State, Sunday Jackson, his death sentence was confirmed by the Supreme Court. I felt very embarrassed by that type of judgment by the Supreme Court.
A herdsman attacked Sunday Jackson in his farm. That was the report. Attacked him with a knife.
Stabbed him on the leg and gave him wounds. And the man struggled with him for his life, got the hold of the knife, dispossessed the herdsman that attacked him with a knife, and in self-defense stabbed the man because they were fighting. And the injuries the herdsman sustained led to his death.
And they arrested him, somebody in his farm. And somebody came to attack him in his farm, to kill him, and was able to manage to escape by overpowering the attacker. And they now arraigned him for murder, that he killed a man.
But the High Court said that now that he took the knife from him, that he would have fled. Where would you imagine he would be fleeing to? Do you know when other people would lay ambush around him and apprehend him again and kill him? So the Supreme Court affirmed his death sentence. And it is a mockery of the efforts we are making to checkmate the activities of herdsmen who go to people’s farms, overrun them, kill them, and up to today we are still grappling with the problem.
It is like that everywhere, both in Kogi, in Nasarawa, in Plateau, wherever. They kill people recklessly. And even this one now, God would not be happy with, the Supreme Court of Nigeria affirmed that the man should be hanged.
Somebody who was in his farm. And the stranger came to attack him, to kill him. He managed to survive, escape, and overpowered his attacker, and used the attacker’s knife, that was confirmed to be belonging to his assailant, to stab him in self-defense.
Our court, our highest court in Nigeria, affirmed that somebody who, in self-defense, inadvertently overpowered his assailant and killed him. In a battle of self-defense, there is no guilt on the part of the man who was to be killed. So turning it around is the most unfortunate thing to happen.
So that judgment, I condemn it, in its entirety, for being a gross miscarriage of justice. And I want to use this opportunity also to call on Mr. President, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, to take note of this incident, this judicial murder by the Supreme Court of Nigeria. To grant some state pardon.
They should not hang him for any reason, because this would be a case of double jeopardy, where you go to a man’s farm, destroy his crops, try to take his life, he survived the attack.
I have never seen a thing like this before.
QUE: Finally, you are certainly very passionate about security in this country. As a leader in this country.
I want to take you into your own home state, which in the last three, four months, there have been a lot of insecurity. Now the governor came up with a strategy, a security model, in which he is clamping down on native doctors and other people he believes are part of the insecurity. I want you to explain, because some people have also condemned the approach of the governor. Do you think the governor is right?
ANS: You see, people don’t place weight on what affects other people negatively. For a long time, our people have been under severe and aggressive criminal activities by these criminals, kidnappers.
They kill people. Sometimes you see them post videos of people that are beheaded, collecting money. In Anambra state that is known to have been a cradle of civilization in Igbo lands, Anambra state has produced the greatest men in the history of Nigeria.
Nnamdi Azikiwe, Chinua Achebe, Odumegwu Ojukwu, who was the richest man in Nigeria at the time. Of course, Odumegwu Ojukwu, his son, we have Professors, the first Nigerian vice-chancellor of the University of Ibadan. Who have we not produced? Professor Chike Obi, the great mathematician. Professors everywhere, every corner of Anambra state.
And suddenly, miscreants took over our state. You can’t go home. Anybody they get, they kill him or kill her. You know, they collect ransoms. The people run away. The state that has millionaires and billionaires in this country, people are no longer going home. So, when the governor was under attack, I remember one incident when 12 people, 16 people, were killed in a community in my constituency. I issued a statement and called the governor to sit up, that he was failing the people of Anambra state.
Security is his first obligation to the state, The first thing you do is to provide security to the people. People can manage poverty, but they cannot manage violent crime.
So, from what the governor has now done, he went into very deep investigations with his people. And other stakeholders that helped to look into the matter. It’s not only the governor that is fighting crime now.
There are stakeholders that are helping to cleanse the state, because the thing has affected everybody, from the highest to the lowest. And from the investigations, it turned out that native doctors were involved in some of these criminal activities, preparing charms for kidnappers that bullets cannot enter their body. Or they tell you to go and get human head, they will prepare a charm for you, so that if you go to an operation, you will succeed. You will not be arrested. Many of them were doing it, and they were posting videos.
We started seeing native doctors that are millionaires, driving luxurious cars, building mansions. You see them go to function, they spend money, like anything. The native doctors we grew up knowing, as young people, were very poor people. Native doctors were never rich in any Igbo society. Because, one, they observed natural laws, that you cannot spill blood. They lived in very poor houses, not in mansions.
But today, you see native doctors living in mansions. So, when they identified these people and went on a crackdown on them, through this new security operation the governor launched in the last one month, the state is peaceful now.
So, it shows that what he did hit the target. You can see, I’ve not heard about kidnapping in Anambra state in the past three weeks. But before, it was a daily or hourly occurrence.
Simultaneously, in a day, you can record about 20 violent kidnap cases. So now, we have not had anything again.
So, anybody who is criticizing that security effort by the governor is insincere. If you are a native doctor, you must be seen to be applying that trade the way we used to know it. Either you are treating people of diseases, ailments and all that using herbs, because they were called herbalists before.
You get fine if it’s malaria. That was the type of thing they were doing before. This new wave of native doctors that were doing concoctions for wealth to come, they are fake people.
There is no way you can use such practices to command wealth to come to somebody. We didn’t see it in the past.
I fully support that security approach. And I thank some stakeholders that I know that tried to get involved to help to sanitize our state. So, our state is returning back to us.
So, anybody who is against it can carry the native doctors to his own state or his own community. Sometimes you see somebody who says he’s a pastor.
just like native doctors as well, because I’ve never seen how you can go and collect women and men and take them to a stream and everybody will strip naked. You’ll be taking bath in a stream. You’ll be doing incantations for you to make money, and you see people going there naked, taking bath in a stream to be rich.
So such pastor, which Bible does he read? Where in the Bible is that verse found? That if you want to be rich, you go to the river and bath naked and be throwing fowls into the stream so the money will come from the stream, you know. So such people should be rounded up, and sent to jail.
