Senate Gives IGP 14 Days To Arrest Perpetrators Of Benue Killings

The Senate Tuesday issued a 14-day ultimatum to the Inspector General of Police (IG), Mr. Ibrahim Idris, to apprehend the perpetrators of the recent killings in Logo and Guma Local Government Areas of Benue State and hand them over to the attorney general of the state for prosecution.

The attacks led to the deaths of at least 73 persons.

Resuming from its Yuletide recess Tuesday, the upper legislative chamber said the failure to arrest and prosecute the perpetrators, who it said include “well trained foreign mercenary elements”, will threaten Nigeria’s unity as the crisis was deepening the country’s ethno-religious fault lines.

The lawmakers also called for an increased security presence in the affected areas, following findings by its Ad hoc Committee on Security that the presence of security forces was thin on the ground.


The lawmakers, however, rejected a motion seeking for the establishment of a North-central Development Commission to address the destruction by killer herdsmen in the Middle Belt region.

Adopting the recommendations of its committee, which visited the state last weekend, the Senate also resolved to convene a national security summit to examine the recurring violence and mayhem in the country’s rural communities before the attacks become an existential threat to national cohesion and survival.

In the face of the report by the committee that some faceless persons were sponsoring and harbouring well trained foreign mercenary elements and using them to unleash violence in Nigeria’s rural space, the Senate harped on the need for better policing of the national borders to ensure movement with proper documentation and regular surveillance.

Senate President Bukola Saraki said the resolutions of the senators on the killings would be transmitted to the executive to consider for immediate action.