The governor said this when he appeared via Zoom on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Thursday evening.
The PUNCH reported that 27 pastoralists were killed after a bomb exploded on Tuesday at the border linking Benue and Nasarawa states at the Doma local government area of Nasarawa State.
The Police Public Relations Officer of the State Command, DSP Rahman Nansel, had told The PUNCH that the police were working with other security agencies and the state government to probe the circumstances surrounding the incident and arrest the perpetrators.
However, Governor Sule said it was difficult to say for certain exactly how many persons were killed by the airstrike, but said they had buried a total of 37 persons.
“It is very difficult. The reason is because we have buried 37 people yesterday, that is what I can tell you for sure. But my colleague from Benue State, also said that he had some burial yesterday in Benue, all from the same incident. So I will not be able to give you the exact figures, but I can only tell you the ones that we received in Doma local government yesterday, and God so kind, we were able to bury them.”
He explained that the victims of the blast were herdsmen who had gone to Benue State to retrieve their cattle, after the cattle had been arrested, owing to the state’s anti-open grazing law. Unfortunately, the bomb had reportedly gone off while the men were loading off from the trucks that had brought them to the border, instantly killing the innocent herdsmen.
Governor Sule added that he did not believe that the blast, which he said reportedly came from a drone strike, was intentional, because no one would target innocent persons and kill them.
“Anytime you have innocent people killed, it has to be an accident, because I don’t think any responsible human being would target innocent people, in a situation like this, to attack them. Now, from what we heard, was that actually there was an operation, and during the operation, there was a drone that was sent out, following some bandits, and that is exactly what happened, so it was in the process of bombing the bandits that these innocent people were killed.”
He added that the state had seen the return of bandits who were responsible for the kidnap of school children along the border, and it was in the course of the operation carried out to flush them out that the unfortunate herdsmen’s death had occurred, adding, however, that they were not sure if the bandits had also been killed in the attack.
