Nigeria: Ombatse Violence - FG Deploys Hundreds of Troops to Nasarawa

BY HIR JOSEPH (LAFIA) & RONALD MUTUM Bank MD, branch manager, driver found dead

Hundreds of soldiers have been deployed to Nasarawa State to contain a wave of deadly violence blamed on the Ombatse militia, which broke out at the weekend.

Army spokesman Brigadier General Attahiru Ibrahim, who announced the fresh deployments in Abuja yesterday, did not give the numbers but said they were up to a "battalion minus."

In the Nigerian Army, a battalion is a unit with about 750 soldiers that consists of six to seven companies, experts told Daily Trust.

Security sources said the troops deployed were in hundreds.

The violence erupted when Eggon youths from the Ombatse militia attacked the Alago people in Adabu on Friday, and the crisis spread to neighbouring areas in Obi and Lafia local governments, leaving dozens dead according to some accounts. "The Federal Government has ordered the deployment of troops in aid of civil authority in order to prevent further escalation of violence and its spread to other parts of the state," Brig-Gen Ibrahim told journalists in Abuja yesterday.

He said troops deployment has helped to curb spread of the violence by ethnic militia groups in the state.

Our correspondent in Lafia reported yesterday that soldiers were seeing arriving in the troubled areas as tension mounted on fresh attacks by Ombatse which has been hitting targeted areas since weekend.

Security sources said 12 Toyota Hilux vans and two mini buses conveyed soldiers from Abuja to reinforce troops that had been earlier deployed from Shendam, the 72 Air Borne Battalion in Makurdi, as well as the 177 Brigade of Guard Battalion in Keffi.

Since the start of the violence, the armed militia has hit several towns and villages in Lafia and Obi local government areas, killing dozens and displacing thousands of people. Police sources said no fewer than 60 members of the Eggon group were thought to have been killed between Sunday and Tuesday night.

On Tuesday afternoon, the militia men launched an audacious attack on a military checkpoint along Akwanga-Keffi road, leading to a shoot out in which 12 of them were killed. The bodies were dumped at the General Hospital in Akwanga, not far off from the scene of the incident.

Yesterday, soldiers discovered three corpses of Managing Director of Police Community Bank Alhaji Alhassan Gidado, the bank's Abuja branch manager Mr. Tunde Banwo and their driver Aliyu Adamu.

They were found in their car which was pushed into a ditch in Tudun Adabu, an Eggon settlement in Obi LGA.

State Police Commissioner Umar Shehu said information on the deaths was still sketchy when Daily Trust spoke to him by telephone soon after 6pm yesterday. He said police had received reports on Saturday that the three were missing.

They had travelled for a wedding in Nasarawa State, and were on their way back when they were trapped in the bloody violence which hit Adabu and Obi towns at the weekend, the commissioner said.