From Joseph Amedu, Lokoja
Unknown gunmen suspected to be Fulani herdsmen on Wednesday ambushed and killed three Bagana farmers along Abejukolo -Bagana road in Omala Local Government Area of kogi state .
Those who lost their lives in the deadly ambush were in their 20s according to the villagers include, Samson Ajene, Adah Audu and Monday Ocho while the injured, a son of a popular timber dealer Haruna Ajene is lying critically at the General Hospital, Abejukolo.
According to locals, the victims, Samson Ajene and Monday Ocho met their waterloo on their farms at Ojuwo Igboone while Adah Audu was mowed down by the suspected Fulani herdsmen while conveying cassava tubers in his a tricycle from the farm.
The natives lamented that the sins which the people of Bagana are suffering from does not emanate from them stressing that the people are living in perpetual fears of attack.
They noted that unless the security agencies adopt proactive measures to nip the criminals from perpetuating crimes against some people with its resultant reprisals against the innocent natives, the people risk of being exterminated from their ancestral homes.
The incidence according to the Special Adviser to the Sole Administrator of Omala LGA on Security Matters, Mr. Steve Shaibu said the victims were returning from the farms before they were ambushed and killed.
He said before the attack, the villagers around Obakume villages had made formal reports of the mass movement of some Agatu militias from Benue state to the forest with sporadic gunshots, stressing that they might have killed scores of cows belonging to Fulani herdsmen living in those areas.
The Special Adviser added that similar incident had occurred at Iyade near Abejukolo , the headquarters of the council in which the Agatu militias unleashed terror on the herder which reprisals by the Fulanis led to many deaths of the natives and burning of houses .
He lamented at the recent killings of these young men who eke a living through farming and plying the road is one too many called on the authority to intensify search at unravelling the perpetrators.
Shaibu explained that his office has written severally on the nefarious activities of criminal elements from Nassarawa and Benue states who used the River Niger to launch attack on Fulani herders whose reprisals have always leave the locals with tales of woes.
Aliyu Akuh , a member Representing Omala Local Government Area in the state House of Assembly condemned the killing and maimings of the locals by unknown gunmen, called on the state government and the Security Agencies to deploy their intelligence to arrest the ugly situation.
He bemoaned the unwarranted crises between Agatu in Benue State and the Fulani which erupted in 2013 had claimed more than 200 lives while properties worth million of naira have been destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Force Public Relations officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police, DSP William Aya confirmed the incident.
He said both the mobile police and conventional police have been drafted to the area to forestall law and order.
He added that he was yet to get the actual number of deaths but said the situation has been brought under control.
