Permit me to begin by saying, I draw my concern from the continuous cries and screams for help that has echoed not only from our people at Agbenema, but from the sum total of these cries that has been shared on different social media by several concern Kogites and Igala natives narrating the present conditions and the ordeal of people and persons living in Agbenema, Omala local government area of Kogi state after the brutal attack of the Fulani herdsmen on this community.
After the herdsmen attack, we had several pictures on social media showing the governor of Kogi state travelling through rivers and forest to meet and condole with the affected families and community. In all fairness, this is laudable, but after this show of maximum concern how has this visit imparted the lives of people and persons who were the victims of the Agbenema herdsmen’s attack?
This is a question we are yet to find answers to.
Thus, I write to call the attention of the general public to the untold fact and the true situation of the Agbenema people after the attack. I write to tell the general public that the people of Agbenema have been abandoned and allowed to fare for themselves after the attack of the herdsmen.
These include, providing security for themselves, treating themselves, sourcing for shelter by themselves since they have lost virtually every thing to the attack. The people of Agbenema are also left to fare for their feeding despite they told the governor and his entourage that their farms were destroyed by the herdsmen during the attack.
It will also please the general public to know that almost all the soldiers deployed to Agbenema have been redeployed,the local security or vigilante group asked to support the remaining soldiers are only but a hand full of natives who also have their lives and that of their families to protect.
Thus considering all of this recklessness presently lavished on the Agbenema situation and the high level of levity showed towards the security of this community,with out fear or bending of words I am tempted to say Agbenema community in Omala local government area of Kogi state is still not totally safe.
As Kogites, we have tolerated the continuous refusal of the Yayaha Bello led government to pay workers. We have borne the recklessness spending of the Kogi bail out fund, we have endured the continuous abuse of the Kogi democracy, we have accommodated all forms of oligarchy, nepotism, tribalism, mitigation, subjugation, tyranny, mockery and all forms of inappropriates permitted by this government.
But there is no way we can accept the abandonment of the Agbenema people by the Kogi State government. There is no way we can ever condescend so low to watch the torture of the already impoverish people of Agbenema. We can not become so inhuman to watch our fellow human beings, our own natives and tribesmen to wallow away in their ruins.
And most of all, we can not watch the desertion and annihilation of our fellow citizens.
Agbenema people are from Kogi state, they hold allegiance to this very state, and are legal citizens of the state, thus it is the complete responsibility of the Kogi State government to provide them with enough security and relief materials with out any form of plea or agitation.
The Yahaya Bello led government must in no way play politics with the Agbenema situation.
It is also important to state here that until the security of the people and persons living in Agbenema and Kogi state at large is regarded, until the people of Agbenema and every other attacked community can sleep without fear, until they can hold gatherings without looking around, until they can go to their farms without any fear of been raided, until they have a roof over their heads and adequate relief materials are provided, we will continue to cry out.
Then, like Comrade Maji isah noted, what ever the Yahaya Bello led entourage did and said at Agbenema and all the affected communities is, and remains a complete political show off and a calculated attempt to buy the the conscience of the people and indeed it has failed.
Not me alone, but every well meaning Kogite will concur to this.
– Jacob Unekwu Agada
author, Ebulejonu,
Osogbo, Nigeria.
