Benue: 14 killed in renewed communal clash

A violent communal clash has left fourteen people dead in the Oju Local Government Area of Benue State.

Properties worth millions of naira were destroyed in the melee that started last Sunday.

The bloody fighting was between the youths of Ibilla and Oju communities over land, a source disclosed.

A curfew, the source said, was imposed on residents by the state government on Monday in a bid to forestall a vicious cycle of violence in the area.

He said there were reports of reprisals leading to the loss of more lives on Tuesday.

The youth leader of Igede Youth Council, Andyson Egbodo confirmed the incident but said that calm had returned to the troubled area.

“Some persons have died from both sides and property has been destroyed also. From the information within my reach, about 14 persons have died; two from one community and 12 from the rival community.” Daily Post quoted him as saying.

Governor Hyacinth Alia, on Monday, declared a curfew on the two communities from 6pm to 6am, saying when the government discovered that the measure wasn’t effective, the curfew was extended to 24 hours starting from Wednesday.

A meeting was convened by elders of the warring communities with the Commissioner of Police at the local government council on Tuesday.

The Police warned that anyone caught disturbing public peace will be shot dead by the military.

Following the meeting, locals have remained indoors with those spoiling for fight sheathing their swords as soldiers beefed up security in the area.

Reports claimed that the crisis started when youths took up arms against one another over the location of a private tertiary institution on a piece of land that both clans were laying claims to.

The immediate cause of the fight was an Australia-based professor from the Ibilla community who proposed to establish a university on a plot of land belonging to the community, stressing that the residents objected to the siting of the university on their land.

They had demanded to know who authorised the Professor to make use of the land in contest.

Reports also had it that a signpost of the proposed university, mounted on the land had the name of another community on it and not that of the supposed land owner.

This, thereafter, triggered a protest by the community laying claims to the land.