By Amos Aar
REPRESENTATIVES of Konshisha and Oju LGAs of Benue State last Friday embraced peace as the two warring communities signed a peace accord at the headquarters of the Benue State Police Command, Makurdi.
The peace accord was reached under the watchful eyes of the Benue State Commissioner of Police, Mr Audu Madaki, who summoned a security meeting to resolve the differences between the warring communities of Ukpute in Oju LGA and Bonta Community of Konshisha LGA following last week’s renewed clashes over disputed boundary claims involving parcels of farm land.
The security meeting summoned by the Police Commissioner was attended by the Chairmen of the two LGAs, youth leaders and traditional rulers from both local government areas. Leading the Oju contingent was HRH Chief Daniel Ulegede while the Konshisha contingent was led by Chief Moses Kyarem.
Represented by Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Zachariah, who presided over the meeting; Mr Madaki observed that the crisis between the two communities had become an annual recurrence which, if not checked, could become an everlasting ancestral dispute.
He urged the parties in conflict to be guided by social norms and know their limits by seeking redress whenever their rights are encroached upon rather than taking laws into their hands.
Chairman of Konshisha Council, Hon. James Jirgba, and his Oju counterpart, Hon. Clement Onaa, who spoke separately narrated how they made efforts to maintain peace after a novelty football match was played last year to mark the end of the crisis between Ukpute community in Oju and Bonta in Konshisha.
They corroborated each other that a committee set up by the state government to carry out an on-the-spot assessment of the boundary crisis was yet to submit its report and wondered why the clashes erupted again.
Although DCP Zachariah did not allow the stakeholders directly involved to explain the immediate circumstances leading to the fresh eruption of the crisis, so as not to renew animosities, the district heads from both side; Chief Clement Vihishima and Chief Sunday Aja, of Konshisha and Oju respectively, both agreed the crisis reopened when some displaced persons returned to their areas to repair their ruined houses and to also prepare sites for the next farming season.
According to them, the state committee’s report was being awaited for boundary demarcation and until that was done, it would not be possible for people from one side to return and settle down while the other community would still be in IDP camp.
National Record gathered from independent sources that since early this year, there had been recorded skirmishes when armed youth from Bonta Community in Konshisha LGA intermittently attack and forcibly harvest farms of two neighbouring communities of Ukpute and Obotu in Oju LGA.
These attacks, a source revealed, culminated in a full scale attack last week on Ukpute and Obotu, when houses were pulled down and properties set ablaze.
The communities, National Record also gathered, had for ages socialised and mingled together, intermarrying and therefore see themselves as one people of Benue State, before last year’s eruption of fight over farm land.
“Since last year, our people kept turning the other cheek in line with the oath/agreement they had, that on no account should a party open fire on the other. As part of the ceremony to seal the peace agreement, Bonta people, at their own instance, came with a football team, food and drinks and corralled our people to consummate the peace treaty which our people grudgingly accepted. There were even joint committees set up to facilitate the process, but here we are being attacked once more by the same people;” an indigene of Ukpute who pleaded anonymity for the sake of sustaining the ongoing peace, stated.
