The Benue State Universal Education Board, SUBEB, has stated that over 10, 000 pupils have been forced out of schools in Guma and Logo LGAs of Benue state due to the attacks by suspected fulani herdsmen on New Year’s Day.
Philip Tachin, chairman of SUBEB on Sunday, January 28, 2018 told newsmen in Makurdi that many schools were affected and families fled their homes, taking their children to take refuge in different camps following the invasion of the state by gunmen.
Tachin was quoted saying; The Benue State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA gave me a staggering statistic of children numbering 2,050 who are locked up in this camp in Gbajimba. Apart from these children from the rural areas that have been camped here, the primary school in Gbajimba has also been shut down in order to accommodate the refugees since there are no enough IDPs camps.
“This is the multiplier effect of this genocidal operation. There are six IDPs camps in these two affected local governments and if the statistics of these school children are the same across the IDPs camps, over 10,000 children have been forced out of school”.
“Many schools have been affected though we are yet to ascertain whether school buildings have been destroyed the same way they do to houses in villages. We met one of the cops that were attacked by the armed herdsmen and he confirmed that they were Fulani herdsmen.
“They were heavily armed and were among their cattle. The federal government should be honest by not playing politics with this serious security problem because it is capable of conflagration. We want one Nigeria and we shouldn’t be pushed to a divided country,” Tachin concluded.
