ABRAKA KINGDOM UNDER SIEGE BY FULANI HERDSMEN

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THE people of Abraka Kingdom, Ethiope East Local Government Area, Delta State, yesterday, cried out that they were under siege by rampaging Fulani herdsmen. 

The residents also dismissed as untrue, a recent claim by the state Police Command that the communities were living peaceably with the herdsmen. President general of Oruarivie-Abraka Kingdom and president, Urhuoka-Abraka community, Mr. John Avwenaghegha, who spoke with Vanguard, said contrary to the claim by the Police, the villagers were living with their hearts in their mouths because of incessant killings, attacks, kidnappings and rape by herdsmen.

Police Public Relations Officer, PPRO, in the state, Mr Andrew Aniamaka, had in a statement, dismissing alleged dropping of supplies by helicopter to herdsmen in Ovre-Abraka, said, “Needless to state that Ovre-Abraka, a forest reserve area, is temporarily inhabited by a minimal number of herdsmen, who have been living peacefully with the community.”

Lamenting the killing, last Friday, of 50-year-old staff of Delta State University, DELSU, Abraka, Mr Sunday Idama, at his cassava farm by suspected herdsmen in Ovre Abraka, Emudainohwo said: “We are surprised that despite the provocative killings of our people, no fewer than five dead in recent times with several others maimed, while the police are saying that Fulani herdsmen are dwelling peacefully with us.”

He gave the names of the deceased persons as Mr Phillip Alpine, Mr Francis Okotie, Mr Sunday Couple, Mr Eyabigun Akpovena and Mr Sunday Idama, adding: “I want to say categorically that the claim by the Police is false.

“The truth is that we are under siege by Fulani herdsmen in our own land. The major means of livelihood of most of our people is farming, but they cannot go to their farms because of the killer-herdsmen in our bushes.”

“You can see that early corn is out in some places now, but there is none in Abraka because no farmer could venture to the bush to farm for fear of the herdsmen,” he added.

Mr Avwenaghegha, whose Urhuoka -Abraka community is the worse-hit by herdsmen attack because of its closeness to their dwelling place, said, “We are scared every time, both in the day and night because we are the ones they mostly kill and attack.

“They have turned the portion of our land where they are occupying and the surroundings to another Sambisa Forest, no villager goes to the area and if you question them for damaging the crops in your farm with their cows, they will either attack or kill you.

“That is what they did to Sunday Idama, last Friday. They pounced on him with machetes and cut his hands, legs, in fact, all parts of his body for daring to ask them why they were harvesting cassava from his farm and feeding their cows with them.

“We have roughly over 2,000 Fulani herdsmen and 10,000 cattle in the various parts of the vast deserts in Abraka, they are nothing but terror to us and we call on the police to protect us, rather than annoying us by saying that they are living peacefully with us when opposite is the case,” he said.

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