Benue Killings: Journalist Raises the Alarm Over Threat To Life

Ms Victoria Ojeme, a journalist for Vanguard Newspaper, has asked the authorities to protect her from the “hands of faceless, unscrupulous, and callous individuals” who have continued to send her threat messages after she raised the alarm about the senseless killing of her kinsmen in a bloody communal crisis.

In February of this year, Ojeme raised an alarm about the crisis in her community following the bloody clashes between the people of Mbarvu and Mbasombo communities in Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue state, which claimed the lives of many people, including her loved ones.

According to her, among those killed in one of the attacks was her Aunt, the only surviving woman in her father’s house.

She had called for an end to the senseless crisis which had led to the sacking of communities and displacement of the people from their ancestral homes over disputed farmlands.

She claimed that some anonymous individuals were offended by her outburst and outcry and had sent her threat messages.

Ojeme, in a statement in Abuja on Wednesday, said she had already reported the matter to the police, after an unknown person sent her a message in her place of residence in Abuja, that she should know that they were aware of where she lives and that they were coming for her soon.

She lamented that: “I no longer feel safe living in my home in Abuja and even in the country; some criminal elements have on few occasions sent verbal messages through people I did not know, that I am being watched.”

She called on the authorities to investigate the ongoing killings in her hometown, adding that from there, they might trace the people threatening her life.

She said the threats to her life heightened immediately after the story of the atrocities in her hometown of Benue was published.

She stated that she only raised the alarm in order for the relevant authorities to accept responsibility for putting an end to the carnage in her community and allowing displaced people to return to their ancestral homes.