Taraba residents cry out as herdsmen take over their villages, farmlands

Some residents of Kona community in Jalingo and Ardo-Kola local government areas of Taraba State have said that they could not access their homes despite deployment of security in their villages. Some of the residents said though soldiers had been drafted to some of the communities, the people were still afraid to return home.

This, they claimed, was because the people were still being killed by suspected Fulani herdsmen. They alleged that most of the communities in the hinterland were without security personnel and they had been taken over by herdsmen.
“I want to suggest that the government should bring the stakeholders of both herdsmen and our community leaders to a roundtable so that they can have a dialogue on how to end the killings.

“We want to go back to our homes but the herders are grazing on our farms in the remote areas so we are afraid to go back. Soldiers have been deployed in Janibanibu which is on the outskirts of Jalingo, but the rest of the villages are still no go areas. My maize and melon farms on over 10 hectares of land have been destroyed by cattle and so it is with other people. I want to call on the government at all levels to end the crisis,” Kwambo said.

The Chief of Kona, Kuru Augustine Njanmeng, had on Wednesday alleged that herdsmen had taken over 17 Kona villages they sacked in May and June. The monarch called on the government and the international community to intervene in the crisis with a view to bringing the displaced persons back to their ancestral homes.

But the State Police Command through the Police Public Relations Officer, DSP David Misal, said the allegations were untrue as the command had drafted patrol teams to the affected villages. Misal, who said the police were not aware of the occupation of communities in the area by herdsmen, called on the monarch to submit a formal complaint to the office of the Commissioner of Police if he had any.