News Post

While welcoming the Lawmakers to the House after the break, the Speaker, Rt. Hon. Yakubu Dogara noted that the House would confront headlong some of the burning and daunting challenges affecting the citizens. He stated that the renewed killings of farmers and sacking of communities by suspected Fulani herdsmen in Benue, Adamawa, Taraba and southern Kaduna will be in the front burner as most lawmakers are gearing to confront the Federal Government on the issue.

He informed that the House is fully aware of the recent attacks where about 73 persons were murdered by the marauding herdsmen in Logo and Guma local government areas of Benue State a day after the New Year. It would be recalled that the incidence which has attracted severe criticism across the country and beyond was treated in the House in March 2017, through a motion brought by Hon. Emmanuel Yisa Orker-Jev, representing Buruku Federal Constituency of Benue State, after which a resolution was passed, urging the Federal Government to disarm herdsmen with dangerous weapons.

Meanwhile, the Deputy Chairman of the House Committee on Petroleum Resources (upstream), Hon. Mark Terseer Gbillah has said the proposal by the Federal Government to establish cattle colonies is alien to the people of Benue and any modern society. Gbillah further disclosed that “the concept of cattle colonies is a strange one and is totally unacceptable to the people of Benue.”

In another development, the House has moved to investigate the alleged disappearance of money from the National Intelligence Agency (NIA) vault. This is coming on the heel of a recent report of a missing $44m from the Agency’s vault.