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Benue insists on boundary demarcation to curb clashes with Ebonyi

By Joseph Wantu
18 April 2016   |   3:27 am
The need for immediate demarcation of the boundary between Benue and Ebonyi states along the Agila/Ngbo axis has been stressed as the best way to end the lingering clashes between Agila community in Benue and Ngbo in Ebonyi.
Samuel Ortom

Samuel Ortom

The need for immediate demarcation of the boundary between Benue and Ebonyi states along the Agila/Ngbo axis has been stressed as the best way to end the lingering clashes between Agila community in Benue and Ngbo in Ebonyi.

This was the position of the Benue State delegation led by the Deputy Governor, Benson Abounu, at a meeting with officials of the National Boundary Commission, Abuja last Friday.

Abounu, in a statement signed in Makurdi by his Chief Press Secretary, Ogaba Ede, reiterated the state’s call on the National Boundary Commission to speed up work on the demarcation of the boundary between the two states, an exercise which they said had begun but was disrupted by youths from Ngbo.

The deputy governor appealed to the commission to prevail on the Ebonyi State government to show more commitment to a peaceful resolution of the crisis.

He dismissed the insinuation that the crisis was caused by people from Benue.

“We Benue people are committed to peace and good neighborliness and would want all parties to the conflict to stop paying lip service to the search for peace,” the deputy governor stated.

He lamented the shutdown of socio-economic activities in the affected areas in the state and expressed the readiness of the state government to fully cooperate with the commission and Ebonyi in bringing back peace to the two communities that had before the break out of hostilities inter-married and co-existed peacefully.

Responding, the Director General of the Commission, represented by the Director, Internal Boundary, Adamu Adaji, lauded steps taken by Benue and its willingness to find ways of ending the conflict.

He pledged to brief the Vice President to appeal to Ebonyi State government to show more commitment in the resolution of the crisis.

The forum was scheduled as a joint meeting between Benue and Ebonyi states but delegates from Ebonyi pulled, citing the need for them to hold further consultations.

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