Herdsmen Renaming Benue Seized IDPs’ Communities - US-Based Nigerians

 

A member of the House of Representatives, Mark Gbillah, has criticised the Deputy Speaker, Ahmed Wase, for blocking a petition by members of his constituency based in the United States of America.

He said what the presiding officer did was against the Standing Orders of the House.

This was just as the Mutual Union of Tiv in America whose petition was blocked by Wase alleged that herdsmen were taking over and renaming their ancestral land abandoned by Tiv people in parts of Benue, Taraba and Nasarawa states due to herders-farmers clashes.

Gbillah, who is representing Gwer-East/Gwer-West Federal Constituency in Benue State, had at the plenary on Wednesday, moved to lay the petition by MUTA.

But Wase, who presided over the session averted Gbillah from laying the petition, claiming that the House does not entertain petitions from outdoor the us of a.

Wase had asked the Benue lawmaker if MUTA changed into registered with the Corporate Affairs Commission.

According to Gbillah, who faulted the Deputy Speaker, the Constitution gives Nigerians the liberty of affiliation, and that the House has committees that cope with problems relating to foreign affairs and the Diaspora.

Our correspondent acquired a copy of the petition on Sunday, dated February 15, 2021, and signed with the aid of President of MUTA, Mr Simon Kusugh; and Chairman IDP Committee, MUTA, Prof. Joseph Zume.

It changed into titled, ‘A petition in opposition to the Federal Republic of Nigeria led via President Muhammadu Buhari.’
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The petition study in component, “The persevered forget/abandonment of hundreds of heaps of Tiv families in IDP camps across Benue, Nasarawa and Taraba states has end up, not simplest embarrassing, but also a disgrace to the whole Tiv race global. The time to stop the assault at the peace-loving Tiv people of Nigeria is now.

MUTA alleged that considering 2013, “armed Fulani herdsmen have time and again wreaked havoc on groups in 20 of the 23 nearby authorities areas of Benue State, massacring thousands of humans, destroying communities and, often, totally obliterating economic and cultural property.”

Consequently, the association said “loads of hundreds” of displaced households now occupy 27 IDPs’ camps across the country, with many extra cohabiting with family in unpalatable conditions.

The institution similarly said, “More depressing is that big swaths of the lands vacated by using the sufferers were occupied by means of their violators. In Kwande LGA, as an instance, the communities of Moon have misplaced their lands to armed herders who now graze their cows freely on those lands even as the real owners languish in IDP camps.”

Speaking to our correspondent on Sunday, Gbillah said the motion via Wase was “out of line” because the Standing Rules of the House did not set the conditions for which the Deputy Speaker dismissed the petition.