Members of the Fulani community in Guma Local Government Area of Benue State yesterday refused to participate in the ongoing polio immunization exercise in the state, even denying health officers entry into their domains.
The state government had recently flagged off an immunization campaign against polio and other communicable diseases in the state’s 23 LGAs.?
LEADERSHIP gathered that the Fulanis deliberately refused to take part in the immunization on the grounds that the Tiv/Fulani crisis was not yet over and that they were afraid of taking the vaccines, because,? as according to them, the exercise was a crafty taxctics? by the Tivs to kill them and their children.
An immunisation officer who simply gave his name as Terungwa told our correspondent: “We went to the Fulani area in Guma local government to immunize them, but to our greatest surprise they refused. According to them, they said the crisis was not yet over and they never wanted to be killed by the Tiv tactic. There was nothing we could do and that is why we decided to come back. The people were almost chasing us away; when we noticed and took to our heels.”
He further said that they had gone to the palace of the Ter Makurdi, Chief Sule Abenga, to report the matter to him but they were told the royal father was attending another immunization campaign flag-off in Gboko LGA.
LEADERSHIP recalls that Fulani herdsmen had, in November 2011, killed over 2,000 Tiv farmers in Guma, Gwer and Makurdi LGAs of Benue State as well as in the neighbouring Nasarawa State, in addition to destroying more than 100 villages and farmlands. At the centre of the constant clashes between the two communities has always been cattle grazing by the herdsmen whom the farming communities accuse the former of destroying their farmlands.