Youths from Ugbokpo, headquarters of the Apa Local Government Area of Benue State, on Friday, stormed the Otukpo/Oweto/Abuja federal highway to protest the incessant killing of their people by suspected herders.
Suspected herders had turned the Benue South Senatorial District into a killing field in the past one week.
No fewer than 52 persons were killed by assailants in separate attacks on two communities in the Otukpo and Apa local government areas of the state between Monday and Wednesday.
On Monday, three persons were reportedly killed at Igbobi in the Apa Local Government Area, while 49 were murdered on Tuesday and Wednesday by the suspected herders at neighbouring Umogidi community in the Otukpo Local Government Area of the state.
The youth in their hundreds mounted roadblocks on the federal highway on Friday, which disrupted vehicular movement for several hours.
“Commuters coming from the southern part of the country and heading for Abuja and those coming from Abuja and heading for Otukpo and the southern parts of the country were stranded for hours,” Adah Ocholi, a legal practitioner in the area told our correspondent on the telephone.
The Chairman of the Apa Local Government Area, Patricia Amali, said the protest was peaceful until hoodlums hijacked it.
Amali said there was no casualty as of the time security operatives were invited to disperse the crowd.
In “Yes, there was a protest by some youths in Ugbokpo this morning because of the killings in our area; initially, the protest was peaceful but along the line, things changed and this made me to involve policemen and soldiers, who later dispersed them,” the chairman stated.
Meanwhile, the Benue State governor-elect, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia, has tasked security agencies to find the killers of 46 persons in Umogidi community of Entekpa-Adoka in the Otukpo Local Government Area of the state.
Alia said this when he spoke with journalists on Friday in Abuja, according to the News Agency of Nigeria.
He sympathised with the families of the deceased and condoled with the entire community over the killings.
Alia urged members of the community and the entire state to remain calm and law-abiding.
He promised to collaborate with communities and security agencies to end killings in the state on his assumption of office on May 29.
He stated, “I am saddened over the killings and I call on the government at all levels to be more proactive to address the security challenges in the state.
“Government should also stay close to the bereaved families in these trying times.
“My fraternal prayers are with the souls of the deceased to rest in perfect peace, and peace should take prominence in the communities in the interest of all and sundry.”
