Agbede community in Etsako West Local Government Area of Edo State has risen in protest against continued kidnapping and killing by Fulani herdsmen, operating from camps in local and neighbouring forests.
The protesters on Wednesday accused the marauders of killing and maiming victims who could not pay ransoms.
They were also raping women and dislodging farmers from their farmlands, lamented the community whose members took to the streets in demonstrations.
They particularly accused police of complicity, and said: “Senior police officers from the North are country covering up the criminals.
“Farm destruction, killings, rapes, and kidnappings for ransom have become disturbingly common and the police, instead of protecting the communities, they seem to be aiding and abetting the Fulani herders against the aborigines.
“The DPO at the Agbede Police Station, the Police Area Command in Auchi, and the Zone Five Office in Benin are not helping matters as we are suspecting them to be backing the herders, which is now creating fear amongst the people over their genuine protection and safety.”
Agbede, and surrounding villages, including Odighie, Egono and Awain, they said, had been under siege in the past two months while efforts to get the assistance of the police in the area had ended in futility.
Vanguard quoted a member of the community who did not want his name on the print as accusing the police of using blackmail, harassment, and detention to intimidate vigilantes and hunters daring to challenge the Fulani criminals.
He said police were forcing indigenes to sign undertakings not to confront the herders.
Still maintaining the allegation, he also claimed that those arrested in connection with the atrocities were usually promptly released within a few hours of arrest.
Citing a case, the anonymous speaker narrated: “Mamudu Momoh was attacked on his farm after he met some herdsmen taking over the farms, uprooting his cassava to feed their cows and in the process, he was attacked and injured.
“He went to the Agbede Police Division to report the case. The case was later turned against him, he was arrested and taken to Zone 5, where he was detained, and the community spent a lot of money to secure his release.
“There is another farmer in the community, Idris, who has been kidnapped by the herdsmen for over a month now and ransom has been paid, the man is yet to be released up till today. We are asking the Inspector General of Police to withdraw the DPO of the Agbede Police division who is a Northerner. Without this, the Agbede community will never know peace in the hands of the herdsmen who are everywhere in our bush claiming to be hunters.”
However Moses Yamu, Chief Superintendent of Police, and spokesman of the Edo State Police Command, was quoted as debunking the allegations, saying that the officers and men of Agbede Police Division had been working round the clock to deal with the herdsmen situation in the area.
Narrating how the police from the division, with a backup from Auchi Area command, had already arrested over 10 suspected kidnappers in that axis who were currently being investigated, he said the community was not fair to the police in their protest, especially to the Zone 5 Command.
He was quoted as saying particularly that the protest, coming less than two weeks after the Assistant Inspector General (AIG) in charge of the zone had just assumed duty, was not a good welcome package by the community for him, especially with the allegation of abetting the said crimes.
