BY OUR CORRESPONDENT
Suspected herdsmen had set ablaze 250 hectares of rice farm of Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State.
Conducting the media men around the destroyed farm on Tuesday, the manager of the farm, Kena Iordzua, said that the gunmen few days ago came to the farm with a large number of cattle during the day and set the farm on fire from three different points.
The burnt portion of the rice farm worth over N100 million. The farm is located at Gbajimba in Guma Local Government Area of the state, the governor’s hometown.
Iordzua also said that due to the wild nature of the fire as a result of the harmattan, the inferno could not be put off despite concerted efforts by those who were working on the farm.
He explained that security agents were mobilized to go after the armed men who shot sporadically in the air as they retreated out of the state.
Commenting on the incidence, the Principal Special Assistant to the Governor on Special Duties, Abrahams Kwaghngu, described the act as barbaric and a threat to food security.
When contacted via phone call and text messages, the Benue State Commissioner of Police, Ene Okon, is yet to make any comment on the incidence.