By Tony Ochela
A coalition of Tiv community leaders in Nasarawa State has raised the alarm over what they described as a calculated plan by Governor Abdullahi Sule to depopulate and displace Tiv indigenes from their ancestral lands under the guise of agricultural development.
At a press conference on Sunday in Abuja, Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Jerry Terkaa Aondo, accused the governor of weaponizing state machinery, including the military, civil defence corps, and key ministries, to systematically demolish Tiv villages and suppress their traditional institutions in Awe, Obi, Keana, and Doma Local Government Areas.
Aondo claimed that Governor Sule is orchestrating an “ethnic cleansing agenda” masked as an agricultural expansion initiative, alleging that the entire Tiv communities of Udugh, Utsuwa, Usula, China, Chabo, Wachi, Tyungu, Uvirkaa, Ugba,Ayarkeke, and over a dozen others have either been demolished, marked for destruction, or faced forced displacement.
“In Udugh village, bulldozers arrived with armed soldiers and civil defence operatives to destroy homes, schools, churches, and even graveyards following a visit by the Governor on May 4. The people were given no option but to abandon their ancestral homes,” Aondo said.
He further alleged that women in Osula village were driven from their farmlands by government agents, leaving families vulnerable and without their only means of livelihood.
“What is happening is not development. It is ethnic persecution carried out in the name of agriculture,” he further alleged.
The Tiv community also alleged that traditional rulers like the Osoho of Agwatashi, Dr. Abubakar Apeshi, were being used as instruments of oppression by refusing to sign indigene certificates and assisting in the destruction of Tiv settlements.
Aondo cited recent attacks, including the burning of Gbaghtar village in Doma LGA by armed herdsmen on the night of May 10, as evidence of state-enabled insecurity targeted at Tiv communities, warning that, “The silence and complicity of the state are telling. The Governor’s actions are dividing ethnic groups and may trigger wider communal unrest if not addressed immediately..
The Tiv community is calling on President Bola Tinubu and the National Security Adviser to intervene urgently saying that the, “The agricultural mandate being touted is a cover. This is about grabbing land, erasing our identity, and commercializing our lives and properties for personal gain”.
They urged the Federal Government to deploy its security apparatus to the affected areas, halt the demolitions, and investigate the Governor’s role in the crisis.
“If unchecked, these actions could plunge Nasarawa State into a deeper conflict with long-term consequences for peace and development,” he said an called on President Tinubu, the NSA and other security agencies to to be proactive in ensuring security of lives and properties of the Tiv people who seek peaceful coexistence with other ethnic groups in Nasarawa State.
“We pray to God to touch the heart of Governor Sule to have mercy on the Tiv people in Nasarawa State. I cannot practice law or sleep well because of the killing of TIV people in Nasarawa State”, he said and added that the Governor, Secretary to the state Government, Commissioner of Police of Nasarawa State, Speaker of the state House of Assembly, DSS, Commissioner of Agriculture in Nasarawa and non of them has responded to our letters complaining of the cleansing of TIV people of Nasarawa State.
Governor Sule is yet to make any official statement on the allegations as of the time of filing this report.
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