Former President Olusegun Obasanjo yesterday visited the graves of the 73 victims of the January herdsmen attacks in Benue State with a call on leaders to work together to tackle the incessant violent clashes between farmers and herdsmen across the country.
Obasanjo laid a wreath at the grave site.
He said the continued violence and insurgency required collaboration and collective urgent attention, stressing that tackling security challenges must begin from the roots to secure permanently solution.
According to him, until the issue is addressed from the roots more and more people will be buried as victims.
“If the issue is tackled right from the root there will be no room for assumptions. We must collectively find solutions,” he said.
Obasanjo said that he laid the wreath to sufficiently express his sorrow, empathy and sympathy to the families that lost their loved ones, the governor and people of the state and Nigerians.
He disclosed that he had attended the Zero Hunger meeting which Gov. Samuel Ortom could not attend because of the incessant attacks on his subjects by herdsmen.
The former president said that he was shocked to hear that after the mass burial of 73 persons, 83 more persons were killed.
He said there can be no investment and development in a chaotic atmosphere because investors would be unwilling to invest in such places.
He emphatically sued for peace among the people.
Obasanjo called for an end to the incessant attacks on farmers by the herdsmen, while appealing the governor not to give up because “there would surely be light at the end of the tunnel.”
The former president flew into Makurdi from Maiduguri.
He was received at the Makurdi airport by Governor Samuel Ortom and other top government officials.
