- Communities urge Bello to enforce relocation directive.
No fewer than nine persons were reportedly killed as unknown gunmen attacked Bagana community in Omala local government area of Kogi state on Tuesday night.
Scores of residents were injured in the attack.
A local who survived the attack by whiskers but did not want his name in print for the fear of being targeted by the militias told newsmen that the gunmen invaded a provision shop located in the heart of the village and opened fire killing four persons on the spot.
He added that the attackers then went on shooting spree in which many people who were running to escape were hit by stray bullets.
He disclosed that he counted five dead bodies from his hiding which included one Alias Barrister, a diesel oil dealer and a dispensary staff of the Local Government Health Center at Ogba, residing in Bagana.
Confirming the incident, the Police public relations officer of the state command, DSP William Aya, said one Usman Salifu called the DPO on phone around 9.30pm on Tuesday that his shop has been attacked by gunmen leading to the death of his sales boy, Bashir Sule and three other customers, while scores sustained various degrees of injury.
He added that on receipt of the distress call, the DPO mobilised his men to the scene and evacuated some of the injured to the hospital for treatment, adding that the force has commenced manhunt to bring the perpetrators to book.
He said peace has returned and assured the people to return home to continue with their legitimate businesses.
Another villager, while recounting his ordeal to our correspondent, said they were woken up from their sleep by the gunshots as they scampered into the bush for safety.
He lamented at the incessant killings of innocent citizens and wanton burning of their houses by the marauders since 2014 and called on the federal and Kogi state government and security agencies to come to their aid.
He added that the village had lost over 300 of her citizens and properties worth billions of naira to the unending attacks by the militias allegedly invited from Benue and Nasarawa states.
He said the crises which started between the Agatu militias and Fulani herders from Benue state has turned Bagana to a ghost town as the efforts by the state government to curtail the carnage proved abortive.
According to him, about five months ago, the same shop which belonged to Musa Salifu, one of the sons of an embattled Onu Otutubatu, Alhaji Salifu Anyebe, was attacked in which he sustained gunshots wounds.
The locals, while recounting their ordeal, noted that since December 2014, the village was on two occasions violently attacked resulting to the death of scores and burning down of houses.
They said the incessant killings by the militias forced the people to evacuate their families and property from their ancestral homes to become internally displaced persons (IDP) in neighbouring villages and to some states, lamenting that no sooner that lives have started returning to the community than the orgy of killings resumed again.
According to the locals, a prominent Hausa chief, Alhaji Audi Abdullahi and chief of Ihankpe were at different times violently abducted and killed by yet to be apprehended bandits.
They explained that some of their children, seven of them, residing outside the state, who innocently came home for sallah celebrations were gruesomely murdered by these vagabonds even as the video of their torture to death had gone viral.
They alleged that the trouble may not have been unconnected with the supremacy battle of who to control resources of the town by the four major tribes; Igala, Hausa, Otutubatu and Ihankpe.
“Bagana, though, a multi ethnic tribes used to be a haven of peace until the chiefs of Otutubatu and Ihankpe moved their headquarters from Omagede and Patanyi. These villages are more than ten kilometres from Bagana, the headquarters of Bagana District of Omala local Government Area.
“The two clans have been at each other’s jugular in attempt to control economic lives of the village using mercenaries to unleash terror on the village.
“In an attempt to control the carnage, the immediate past governor, Captain Idris Wada had severally summoned the chiefs to Lokoja and warned them to maintain peace, but unfortunately, the warning felled on deaf ears.
“The Governor had stationed detachment of soldiers and mobile policemen to maintain peace, but they too became the casualty as the soldiers lost two of their men and four policemen to the Ak- 47 wielding militiamen.”
A community leader, Alhaji Ismaila Umar, while speaking to our correspondent on phone, urged Governor Yahaya Bello to establish Naval post and a police post in the village, saying the location of the village at the bank of River Benue has made it vulnerable to all kind of criminals.
He lamented that the chiefs who were not indigenes of Bagana and whose forefathers had never been a chiefs in the town would from no where seized the town using militias to whip every body to order.
However, the District Head and Oga Onu Ife, a third class chief, Alih Haruna, whom our correspondent gathered had literally abandoned his palace to another village for safety could not be reached for comment.
Meanwhile, the paramount ruler of Omala local Government Area, Onuh Ife (Joogba) HRH Boniface Musa condemned the killings and urged the chairman of the council Hon. Ibrahim Aboh and Governor Yahaya Bello to enforce the earlier directive to the unauthorised chiefs in Bagana to relocate to their domains.
The paramount ruler explained that as part of peace effort, the Ministry of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs had summoned all the chiefs from the LGA to Lokoja, the capital and gave a stern directive to the chiefs of Otutubatu Alhaji Salifu Anyebe and Ihankpe’s representatives to relocate back to their domains of Omagede and Patanyi respectively.
He wondered why Onu Otutubatu, Alhaji Salifu Anyebe, has remained adamant as all peaceful negotiations with him to relocate to his domain have violently been ignored.
He said unless the governor invoke his powers in ensuring that the Onuh Otutubatu is forced to respect his directive of relocation , peace would continue to be ellusive and carnage will continue in the area.
Bagana, a riverine community with a population of about ten thousand inhabitants, had played host to John Holt conglomerate during the colonial era. It has a thriving commodity market where trade by barter model of exchange is still practiced. The former president Olusegun Obasanjo in May 2007, two weeks to the expiration of his tenure, signed agreement with Global Tolls, the first in bridge construction in Nigeria to construct a bridge from Bagana to Guto across the River Benue leading to the FCT through public private partnership PPP. The bridge which had reached advanced stage has since been abandoned.
