Benue State Governor, Fr. Hyacinth Alia has cautioned against attempts to downplay the pains and the sorrows the people of the state are going through in the hands of bandits and terrorists.
He spoke with journalists at the weekend when he received Nobel Laureate Prof Wole Soyinka, who was in the state.
The governor said he feels “the pains of one life lost in the state; it’s quite many.”
Reacting to questions on his comment with respect to the claims of “Christian genocide” in Benue State, Fr. Alia said he “never denied that my people were killed. I remain very firm that we have bandits and terrorists who come fully organised to destroy, maim, and kill. I have consistently, yes, religiously, stated and emphasised that their aim is land grabbing. This did not begin as anything religious.”
He explained that the situation in the state “began as farmer–herder conflicts before it graduated into this banditry. The fact is that when the bandits and terrorists came in, it never began with anything religion.
“They just came to disturb our lives, to drive people away from their farms and then to land grab.”
