Peter Ukaa, a former deputy chairman of Katsina-Ala local government area of is one a few prominent people who survived the recent spate of killings in Benue North-east senatorial district.
Although he may not have been the major target of last Friday attacks by unknown gunmen which led to the death of a prominent political figure in the state, Ukaa however escaped by the whiskers but with a bullet wound.
The senatorial district, which comprises seven local government areas, recently witnessed an upsurge in the activities of assailants leading to the killing of notable politicians, with the worst violence occurring in Kastina-Ala, Ukum, Kwande and Ushongo local government areas.
While Logo local government, where the former governor Gabriel Suswam hails from had its share of violence during the March/April general elections, the area had also suffered the loss of hundreds of lives lost to herders’ invasion in the past six months.
But there had been insignificant cause to fret in the two local government areas of Vandeikya and Konshisha which form part of the district and home to senator Barnabas Gemade and representative Herman Hembe.
Only last week, residents in Katsina-Ala alleged that over 20 people were killed, among who was a People’s Democratic Party (PDP) chieftain, Chief Atoza Ihinda. But the police had disputed the figure saying only three deaths were recorded.
Prior to Ihindan’s assassination, PDP’s former chairman in Katsina-Ala Zege Igyuve, was shot and killed by unknown gunmen, the party’s youth leader in Ushongo, Ternenge Gbuuga, was also dealt a similar fate, just as two stalwarts of PDP in Kwande, Dege Ayahemba and Tarkighir Agbatse, were shot and killed, while another PDP faithful in Kwande, Felix Ajiva, was assassinated in like manner.
As a result of these incidents in Kastina-Ala in the last two weeks, tension had heightened in the ancient town with many innocent people sent to their early graves while others, such as Ukaa are thankful to God that they have another chance to tell their story.
He narrated that it happened on a fateful Friday while he sat on a plastic chair beside the late Ihindan. “Two men who rode on a motorcycle advanced towards us and began to shoot,” he said, adding that he was so frightened that he took to his heels but was still hit by a bullet.
The former deputy chairman said he could not determine whether the killings in the area were political or criminal, especially as the motives are still shrouded in mystery because most of the victims were members of his party, the PDP.
Similarly, the family of another victim, Jacob Terese Awarga Ajon, who was hacked to death a day before his 44th birthday, along the busy road linking the food basket junction in Katsina Ala town, is still searching for the rationale behind his elimination.
His elder sister, Mrs. Shidoo Awaza told Daily Trust on Saturday in Tse-Ajon that her brother was brutally clubbed to death like an animal and his body shredded into pieces along the road.
She said the late Ajon, who was the only surviving son of his parents, was a civil servant who had worked with Katsina Ala local government with very little to show for it.
Mrs. Awaza said his assailant had earlier traced him to the house
at around 2:00 am on July 14. They did not find him, so members of his family put a call through to him to alert him, but the attackers caught up with him on the way and killed him.
Awaza described her brother as neither a politician nor a bad man, adding that they were still in shock over the manner he was killed.
“He could not even complete his building due to lack of money. With two wives and three little kids, he had survived by his sweat,” she lamented. Now people in the area are afraid for their lives, she intimated.
As far as she is concerned, a visitor can easily feel the apprehension that pervades the town as the people appear to be watching their backs for any eventuality. “No one wants to talk about the latest happenings for fear of being hunted,” Mrs. Awaza said.
An official of Katsina local government council expressed his fears while commenting on the issue, warning that he and this reporter could be attacked in the process because “the bad boys could be anywhere around.”
However, at No. 1, Ihindan Close, off Gondo Aluor Way in Katsina-Ala, at the home of the late Atoza, his relations were in a sober mood, especially with the realisation that the suspect arrested by the police in connection with the killing of their benefactor was related to the family.
A cousin of the late politician, Gudaku Aondo, said that the suspect when apprehended had admitted that he shot and killed the deceased before he was taken to the police station. According to him, the assassination was more political than a mere act of criminality because there were earlier threats to his life which were reported to the police. “The family of the suspect Aondover Nough, are now scared because we are related,” he revealed, adding that he was told that the suspect returned from Ibadan where he had been and not known to have any job about a month ago.
Meanwhile, the personal assistant to the deceased, David Denen, who was present at the scene of the incident explained that he had followed his principal at 11:00 am on that day to inspect his perimeter fence located two kilometers from the family house, when one of the two assailants jumped down from the motorcycle which they rode to shoot dead his boss.
Denen noted that there had been rampant killings, but nobody knows what the assailants want. He described his boss as a very peaceful man and that his police orderly tried hard to gun down the assailants but did not succeed.
Sadly, the high profile killings in the state have raised concerns from various quarters with the two leading political parties trading blames, while some prominent indigenes have added their voice to the debate.
A former Commissioner of Police Lagos State, Alhaji Abubakar Tsav, said Governor Samuel Ortom should be blamed for the recent spate of killings, especially around the Katsina-Ala, Logo and Ukum axis, popularly referred to as Sankera traditional ethnic stock of the Tiv nation.
He argued that the killing of the notable politician, which brought to seven the number of PDP members assassinated in less than two months in the same area with at least many more people shot dead by unknown gunmen in similar manner in just two weeks, leads to more questions.
Tsav in a chat with journalists in Makurdi stated categorically that the governor, his security adviser, Col. Edwin Jando and chief security officer, Dickson Pawa, should be held responsible for the killings. He stressed that the killings look political, even though the state security adviser and CSO to the governor hail from the area (Sankera).
“Within one month or so, seven PDP politicians have been killed. What is the security adviser and CSO doing, or are they privy to the killings? Ortom wants to be governor but does not want the responsibility that comes with governorship,” Tsav noted.
The former CP, who maintained that the two security officers should not have been appointed in the first place for their role in the present government, also pointed out that the manner in which Jando was booted out of the army requires further investigation.
He said Pawa, who was Suswam’s aide-de-camp for seven years, was sacked during the twilight of the ex-governor’s administration over alleged disloyalty and should not have been appointed into such a sensitive position.
In a swift reaction, the governor’s media aide, Tahav Agerzua, described Tsav’s comment as “baseless and mischievous,” noting that the true situation on ground was the opposite of what the former police commissioner stated.
Agerzua had condemned the assassination of Ihindan and others in Katsina-Ala area in a statement made available to Daily Trust on Saturday, adding that government would energise security agencies to track and apprehend the serial killers.
The governor’s spokesman had described the assassination of Ihindan and others as, “unwarranted, despicable and unacceptable,” and pledged that the culprits would be punished even as he commiserated with the bereaved families and prayed God to comfort them.
In what appears to be a dramatic twist, son of the late politician, Terfa Ihidan has insisted that the governor’s CSO, Pawa had a hand in his father’s death, alleging earlier threats by the police officer just as he already filed in a petition to the Inspector General of Police.
The younger Ihindan, who is was commissioner of commerce and Industry in the last administration in the state, told Daily Trust on Saturday by telephone that he absconded from Makurdi because Pawa would have killed him before his father, who was PDP caucus chairman in Benue North-east senatorial district.
He narrated that his father had gone out to inspect the perimeter fence of a property in Katsina-Ala town last Friday in company of a police escort and aide before two hired killers on a motorcycle came and shot him at close range, adding that his father did not do anything to warrant being assassinated.
But the Benue State Commissioner of Police, Hyacinth Dagala, said that investigation into all the killings in the area was ongoing and that the command would not just arrest people based on suspicion.
Speaking to Daily Trust on Saturday, Dagala said that the command had arrested 14 suspects linked to various crimes in the area, with one person strongly suspected to have killed late Ihindan, as well as a couple within the spate of 24 hours in Kastina-Ala.
He maintained that the blame and accusations being traded by political parties in the state was typical of politicians to nail their perceived enemies, but that until investigations were concluded it would be difficult to determine whether the killings had political undertone.
The commissioner, who ruled out the involvement of cultists in the killing spree, insisted that the outcome of the command’s findings will reveal if the killings were carried out by members of same party or the ruling party against the opposition.
However, some people have posited that the killings were not more than the result of high level of criminality, which had over time existed in the area and extended to Gboko local government area early this year until tough security measures were taken.
It has been common knowledge that a gang of criminals allegedly operating with powerful charms which allegedly make them invisible to security agents, had terrorised the area overtime, killing, maiming people and extending their acts to border states of Taraba, Nasarawa and Cross River states. The gangs were believed to be responsible for cattle rustling and killing of some police officers drafted from Abuja sometime in March this year to clampdown on activities of rustlers. Their activities had also been suspected to have prompted herders’ attacks on the innocent villagers who knew little or nothing about the cows stolen.
Dagala, who paraded suspects at the command’s headquarters in Makurdi on Thursday, admitted that crime rate has significantly increased in the Sankera axis after elections, and that as part of strategies against the lawless trend, an eighth team of policemen had been deployed to the area.
Fearing that the state had turned into a killing field, Senator Joseph Waku has charged the state government to scale up its activities to address the rising cases of crime or call on federal government for support.
Waku also said the late Ihindan was his colleague in Benue parliament between 1979 and 1983 and opined that the state had lost a rare gem with lots of wisdom and reservoir of knowledge.
He urged the state government to do everything within its means to track down the grievances of the offenders, find out what those grievances were and give it a quick resolution.