The President -General of the apex socio-cultural organization of the Tiv people, the Mzough u Tiv or Mutual Union of the Tiv, MUT, has alleged that a large percentage of Tiv farmers have been chased away from their ancestral lands by terrorists and are no longer farming.
This, he said has led to widespread hunger as a large chunk of the farming population are now confined to Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, camps.
Chief Ihagh disclosed this during a chat with journalists in Makurdi on Monday.
He said that some displaced communities have been in IDP camps for over ten years with the government unable to contain the ugly situation all this while.
The MUT helmsman who said that he appreciates President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for doing his best to curtail the insecurity also said that the problem pre-dates the Tinubu administration.
He, however, pointed out that the good intentions of the president notwithstanding, the best efforts of the government have proven ineffectual and rather than abate, the situation was rather escalating and asked rhetorically “so why won’t we be happy with the intervention of the US?”.
Chief Ihagh cited many communities which have been sacked and cannot even bury their dead on their ancestral lands again.
He said his own ancestral home in Kwande is also sacked and presently occupied by terrorists.
“I am an IDP. For the past 18 years, I haven’t been able to access my ancestral home. I couldn’t even bury my wife there when she died”, he lamented.