The displaced people of Agojeju-Odo community in Omala Local Government Area of Kogi State have pleaded with the federal and state governments to assist them to return home after Thursday’s bandits attack.
The bandits launched an attack on the quiet and peaceful Agojeju-Odo community, killing 25 persons in the process.
They also injured some and displaced the community.
Some of the Internally Displaced Persons made the appeal to newsmen who visited them at Bagaji-Odo community on Saturday.
Patience Akauwu, a 67-year old woman, said life had become tough and hard for them, having lost their farm produce to the attackers.
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Akauwu said: “We have been displaced and suffering here in Bagaji-Odo due to lack of food and a conducive place to stay.
“All we are asking for is the federal and state governments to assist in providing adequate security for us to return home.”
Joshua Salifu, a farmer, said his wife and children were still missing and pleaded with the government to help find them.
He said when the bandits attacked the community between 3:30pm and 4pm on Thursday, everyone in the village began to run helter skelter.
Salifu said: “At that time, we were running for our dear lives.
“I’m here in Bagaji-Odo not knowing where my wife and children are.
“I took part in the burial of the 25 persons killed, but my wife or any of my children was not among them.”
Salifu said he was afraid to go back to the village to search for his loved ones and was helpless.
Another IDP, Paul Achabo, a farmer, begged the government to help set up military presence in Agojeju-Odo community, a border village between Benue and Kogi States.
Achabo said that unless there was adequate security in the community, they could not go back for fear that the bandits might return.
According to him, all their foodstuffs such as yam, cassava, maize, cashew and beans were carted away by the bandits.
The District Head of Bagaji-Odo, Chief David Akpa, also pleaded with the government to come to assist the IDPs and the affected communities
Akpa said: “This is because we don’t have the kind of sophisticated weapons the bandits have to face them.
“God knows we have no problem with the herdsmen around us, but why they did this to our people we don’t understand.”
Suspected armed herders killed at least 25 people and wounded an unspecified number of others in Omala Local Government Area community of Kogi State on April 4.
The attack reportedly came in retaliation for local residents recently killing six herders.
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