There is growing tension in Uwheru Kingdom, Delta State, after nine corpses were exhumed from shallow graves where their assailants had hurriedly interred their remains. Suspected Fulani herdsmen allegedly killed 24 persons in Avwon, Agadama and Ohoror communities last week.
The discovering of the gruesome remains, which led to the exhumation of the corpses, came in the wake of denials by the Delta State Police Command, which implied that there was neither an invasion or killings of denizens of the kingdom by Fulani herdsmen.
However, the Delta State Commissioner for Higher Education, Patrick Muoboghare, confirmed to journalists that several persons fell to the far superior firepower of the marauders and were interred in shallow graves by their killers.
According to eyewitnesses, numerous armed herdsmen apparently in search of grazing paths, invaded farmlands in the communities, destroying crops and farm produce, besides allegedly killing over nine persons farmers.
As a result of the murderous occurrence, the youths in the community mobilised themselves and redirected the cows off the farms. However, the herders regrouped, and allegedly went on a killing spree and, thereafter, buried their victims in shallow graves.
“Yesterday, two corpses were deposited at Ughelli. We are still counting,” Muoboghare said after the recovery of at least nine corpses.
He accused security agencies, especially the army, who were yet to debunk the allegation of not only providing cover for the Fulani assailants but allowing the killers to satisfy their murderous thirst before moving in to effect sanity.
“In the last few years, they have killed not less than 50 people in the community, and the yearly killings were a plot by the Fulani herdsmen to take over our land.
Continuing, Muoboghare said: “Before now some Fulani herdsmen were arrested and handed over to the police, but they were promptly freed, because the police national command structure is in the hands of Fulani officers.
“The community, known for its production of sweet potatoes, groundnut, pepper and fish, can longer go to their farms due to the menace of herdsmen,” he revealed.
A former president-general of the Uwheru Community Development Association, Ogarivi Utso, while tracing the trajectory of the assailants, told journalists that the herdsmen always arrived the community during the dry season, especially around November in droves with several cow-carrying trucks. According to him, they forcefully occupy open lands, ponds, and farmlands. He further said that the arrival of the Fulani herdsmen is announced with a cacophony of AK-47 gunshots intended to ward off possible intrusion by locals, adding that the herdsmen usually returned up north when the rainy season commenced.
He decried the agony and fear Uwheru people now live in and the total annihilation of their economic mainstay since what he called deliberate onslaught of Fulani herdsmen on their ancestral land since 2004.
While the natives continue to lick their wounds and lose their youths during each onslaught, women and children in their scores, the state government appeared much more responsive and responsible.
