The Benue State government yesterday confirmed the killing of at least 3, 920 peasant farmers in Agatu local government area of the state.

The Commissioner for Information, Culture and Tourism, Hon. Michael Inalegwu, disclosed this at a news conference in Makurdi, the state capital.

Hon. Inalegwu said the killings took place in different attacks in the last four years. The commissioner, who was reacting to attacks on Governor Samuel Ortom by the presidency over his (Ortom’s) Arise Television interview, where he raised fundamental issues bothering on general insecurity in the country, flayed the presidency’s allegation that the governor was the architect of the problems confronting people of the state.

He said that the intractable problem of armed militia herdsmen banditry ravaging states in the country “was created by the present All Progressives Congress (APC) led government.

Hon. Inalegwu expressed surprised that the presidential spokesman, in his response to Ortom’s interview “did not even make any reference to the word security in spite of the facts and figures reeled out by the governor to prove the despicable deterioration of the security situation nationally and in Benue state under President Buhari’s leadership and how the state’s anti-open grazing law has helped to put the herdsmen attacks on Benue communities in check.”

(New Telegraph)