By Amos Aar
WOMEN of Mbasombo District on Tuesday at Ikpayongo Town in Gwer-East LGA of Benue State blocked Makurdi-Otukpo Highway defied a heavy downpour to stage a peaceful protest against their alleged perpetual rape by militiamen from neighbouring Mbaivur District of the same local government.
[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RXCkybBnZpQ[/embedyt]
Mbasombo and Mbaivur districts have been at war with each other since 2020 over land dispute.
The protesters, who expressed their bitter feelings in a video of the protest, alleged that Mbaivur people have been destroying farms belonging to their Mbasombo neighbours, while they allegedly raped and torture their wives as well as kidnapping and killing their husbands on farms on a daily basis even as they said Mbasombo people had won a litigation over the land dispute.
The last rape incident that triggered the protest was the alleged rape of one Mrs Naomi Awua Angyo, a nursing mother from Ugondo Community on Monday.
Narrating her ordeal in a video, Mrs Angyo whose audio interview was sent exclusively to National Record said, she was raped by three militiamen out of over 100 others who invaded her community through Mbaivur, all dressed in military uniform.
Audio of Mrs Angyo’s narration of her rape ordeal in the hands of the militia.
The alleged rape victim said the militiamen kidnapped her husband, Mr Aondofa Awua Angyo, alongside two others on the 26th June, 2023 while they were working on their farms.
She alleged that the three bandits brutally raped her amidst serious torture and threw away her baby who was yet to weaned.
“The militia came from Ayati side and they were pursuing a young man who was also working on his farm close to us. When my husband heard their voices as they were shouting catch him, catch him, he thought they were referring to him and he started running out of his cassava and they pursued and caught him and the other guy close [to a military/police] checkpoint.
“I hid inside bush and they didn’t see me. But the child I was carrying made noise and they came and caught me. They asked me the name of my community and I told them I am from Mbaivur”, she stated.
Mrs Angyo further revealed that although the first group of the militia was satisfied with her explanation that she hailed from Mbaivur Community and married to Aondofa from Ugondu, which is not part of the warring communities, she was not lucky when the second batch caught her and was not convinced by her explanation.
“They asked me my community and I told them I’m from Mbaivur, Mbaviõhõ, Tse-Goja. I’m the granddaughter of Kõrkentyõ, Goja Gbir, who used to compose folksongs with Tamen in those days.
“They asked me where I am married and I told them I am married to the son of Akperaga Terna in Ugondo, Mbaikya. But we have rented a house in Ikpayongo Town and we are living there. So, we have hired a piece of land from that side where they attacked us and we are farming there. Having been satisfied with my self- introduction, they unanimously decided that I should be freed to go because I am their sister and my child too should not be harmed.
“But when another batch of the militia caught me on the way, they asked me why I had the guts to go to farm despite the ongoing crisis. I said yes, I am an outsider, so I didn’t know what was going on, that’s why I went to farm.
“They asked me which community I came from and I told them exactly what I told the first group. But they said it was a lie, insisting that I am Mbasombo daughter married to Mbasombo man.
“They said that since I am the daughter of Kõrkentyõ, they will catch me by the buttocks and that’s how they started raping me in turns”.
Kõrkentyõ is a Tiv name which literally means catch or hold from or on the buttocks.
Naomi added: “They first of all ordered me to go and remove the cassava I planted and I complied. They even helped me to uproot the cassava and told me that I would pay them with sex.
“There were five men who initially raped me, but two of them withdrew, saying if you sleep with this kind of woman, you may contract a problem. But the remaining three said they would better do it and die.
“I started crying and I begged them to pity me for the sake of the baby I was breastfeeding but they did it anyhow they wanted and left me there.
“The oldest man among them came and was hitting me on the head and even threatened to kill my baby. But the younger ones told him to leave the child. Then, he ordered me to get up immediately from where I was lying very tired and helpless before he would butcher me with his cutlass. That’s what happened to me on the farm today”, Mrs Angyo narrated.
The rape victim said more than 50 of the militiamen were armed with guns while many others were carrying cutlasses and axes and that they were threatening to come for more attacks.
Naomi said although others were tortured and later released, her husband, Aondofa Awua Angyo, was nowhere to be found.
But the protesting women told Speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly, Hon. Aõndona Dajoh, who later visited the area that the Mbaivur militia had killed the captive.
They also told the Speaker that Mrs Angyo, who was raped by 3 militiamen, had swollen thighs and was being treated in a hospital.
Another source, who confirmed the killing of Aondofa, said the militia called on phone and informed that they killed Aondofa and left his dead body along Chihichan Road.
When the Speaker, accompanied by all the 32 members of the State House of Assembly appealed to the protesting Mbasombo women to retire back to their homes and give him five days to handle the matter, the women refused that 5 days were too many as the killings and rape have been ongoing since the day Governor Hyacinth Alia came and left according to them.
They insisted that the corpses of their slain husbands must be released to them for burial or else, they would go to Mbaivur to demand for the corpses so that the militia would go ahead to rape and kill them as they have been doing.
“We no go gree ooo we no gree”, the women chanted songs as they refused to open the Makurdi-Otukpo Highway for the Speaker to proceed to Aliade, the headquarters of Gwer-East LGA to interface with Ter Gwer on the situation.
