Tiv people are targeted for elimination – Traditional rulers raise alarm 

By Jimin Geoffrey

Second class traditional rulers from the 14 local government areas of Tiv extraction in Benue State have raised alarm that the Tiv are targeted for elimination from Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States.

The traditional rulers who expressed their fears today during a courtesy visit on Governor Samuel Ortom at the Benue Peoples House Makurdi also called on the Federal Government to immediately take steps to ensure that displaced Tiv people return to their ancestral homes.

Spokesman for the group and Ter Tyoshin, Chief Daniel Abomtse said the Tiv people are constantly “chased away from their ancestral homes in those states and their homes and farmlands in firm occupation and control by herdsmen of Fulani nationality with the approval of authorities in those states.”

Consequent upon this, the traditional rulers appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to put in place the necessary mechanism to ensure early and safe return of displaced persons and those whose county homes are in occupation by invaders in Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba States to take back their places of origin.

They also appealed that necessary security measures be put in place to ensure the protection of the returnees and their general welfare aside reconstruction of their ravaged homes and payment of adequate compensation for loss of lives and property.

The traditional rulers urged the Federal Government to direct the government of Nasarawa and Taraba States to look into cases of Tiv indigenes in those states “whose homes and farmlands have been taken over by Fulani herdsmen be unconditionally reversed to them.”

They also asked that polling units previously taken away from Tiv settlements be returned and special grace for registration by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC be conducted on “compassionate grounds.”

Chief Abomtse particularly noted that “attention should be focused on the Tiv people chased away from Doma, Obi, Keana and Awe LGAs of Nasarawa State and also the Tiv aborigines of Wukari, Gassol, Gashaka, Bali, Ibi, Donga, Takum LGAs in Taraba State.”

Governor Ortom while appreciating the traditional rulers for the visit lamented the sustained killings in Benue by militia herdsmen, stressing that the injustice perpetrated by the Federal Government to other parts of Nigeria is uncalled for.

He stated that already, the continued stay of over 1.5 million people in IDP camps had led to food crisis in Benue, pointing out that he has no reason to be quiet as some people expect him to be.