Unknown gunmen suspected to be herdsmen on Wednesday ambushed and killed three Bagana farmers on Abejukolo -Bagana road in Omala Local Government Area of Kogi state .
Those who lost their lives in the deadly attack include; Samson Ajene, Adah Audu and Monday Ocho while the injured, a son of a popular timber dealer Haruna Ajene is lying critically at the General Hospital Abejukolo.
According to the villagers, the victims, Samson Ajene and Monday Ocho were killed on their farms at Ojuwo Igboone while Adah Audu was mowed down by the marauding herdsmen while conveying cassava tubers in his tricycle from the farm.
The communities stressed that unless the security agencies adopt proactive measures to nib the criminals from perpetuating crimes against some people with its resultant reprisals against the innocent natives, the people risk of being exterminated from their ancestral homes.
The Special Adviser to the Sole Administrator of Omala LGA on Security Matters Mr. Steve Shaibu while commenting on the incident said the victims were returning from the farms before they were ambushed and killed.
Shaibu said before the attack, the villagers around Obakume villages had allegedly made formal reports of the mass movement of some Agatu militias from Benue state to the forest with sporadic gunshots, stressing that they might have killed scores of cows belonging to the herdsmen living in those areas.
The Special Adviser added that similar incident had occurred at Iyade near Abejukolo, the headquarters of the council in which the Agatu militias unleashed terror on the herder which reprisals by the herdsmen led to many deaths of the natives and burning of houses.
While calling on the authority to intensify search at unravelling the perpetrators of the heinous act ,
Shaibu explained that his office has written severally on the nefarious activities of criminal elements from Nassarawa and Benue states who used the River Niger to launch attack on fulani herders whose reprisals have always leave the locals with tales of woes.
Also speaking on the incident , Hon. Aliyu Akuh, Member Representing Omala Local Government Area in the state House of Assembly condemned the killing of the locals by unknown gunmen, calling on the state government and the Security Agencies to deploy their intelligence to arrest the ugly situation.
He bemoaned the unwarranted crises between Agatu in Benue State and the fulani which erupted in 2013 had claimed more than 200 lives while properties woth million of naira have been destroyed.
Meanwhile, the Police Public Relations Officer, Deputy Superintendent of Police DSP William Aya confirmed the incident, saying both the mobile police and conventional police have been drafted to the area to forestall law and order .
