Community leaders from Tiv-speaking communities in Taraba State, northeast Nigeria, have strongly counselled that the Nigerian Army (NA) should not be used by any state, institution, group of persons or individual to fuel ethnic tensions and or assist one ethnic group to illegally oust another ethnic group from their ancestry and traditional heritage.
This counsel is contained in a petition dated 2nd May, 2025, titled: Petition against the attempt to forcefully and illegally evict Tiv people from Wukari, Ibi, and Donga LGAs of Taraba State under the guise of alleged Nigerian Army take over and addressed to the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS).
Prof. Sebastine Hon, SAN, endorsed the petition on behalf of the leaders of the affected communities.
According to the petition, last month, officials of the Taraba State Government, accompanied by armed NA personnel, stormed Tiv farmlands stretching from Ikyaior to Jandekyula and down to the Interior, declaring all the communities, villages, and vastly expanded parcels of land a “military zone.”
Consequently, the officials ordered locals in the affected communities “made up of indigenous Tiv men, women and children, to vacate their lands, which according to the invaders, had been acquired for army barracks, a shooting range and other military activities.”
TNT understands that the directive was issued on 17th April, and on “18th April 2025, several bulldozers were brought unto, and they started excavating and levelling our Clients’ lands under the watch of heavily armed military personnel. Signposts marked “Military Zone Keep Off” were also erected on the land, spanning over eight (8) kilometres by six (6) kilometres’ radius. The said signposts are on the land to date,” part of the petition reads.
Civil protests lasted for several days against the move, including by female adults from the affected communities, some of whom were demonstrating half-naked, prompting withdrawal.
“However, the illegally erected signposts are still on our Clients’ land,” Hon, SAN, indicates in the petition.
The petitioners view the act as a continuation of the history of ceaseless aggression against the Tiv people in Taraba State rather than any intended public purpose.
They, therefore, request the CDS “to direct, without fail, and immediately, the cessation of the illegal invasion and attempt to confiscate our Clients’ ancestral lands. The illegal signposts upon which the inscription “Military Zone Keep Off” is written should also be removed.”
