What Happened?
Farmers on a Rice field at Garin Kwashebe, Borno State were attacked last night by members of the terrorist group, Boko Haram. On the same day, residents of the state were voting to elect local government council officials, for the first time in 13 years.
A former chairman of the Rice Farmers Association in Borno State would go on to affirm the incident.
It was a sad incident that took place at about 11 am today. The farmers were attacked at the Garin-Kwashebe rice field, and according to reports reaching us since afternoon, about 40 of them were killed.
But we have been receiving conflicting information on the casualty figures – some said it was up to 50 farmers that were slaughtered.
A lawmaker, Ahmed Satomi, representing Jere Federal Constituency, Borno State stated it was due to an attack on one of the group’s men.
Farmers and fishermen were killed in cold blood. We have so far received 44 corpses from the farms and we are preparing for their burials tomorrow by God’s grace.
The farmers were attacked because they had on Friday disarmed and arrested a Boko Haram gunman who had been tormenting them
Why this matters
The Buhari administration came to power in part because of the failures of the Jonathan administration in curbing insecurity in the region. Though responsible for the death of over thirty-thousand and three million displaced people since July 2009, when the violence started in the country’s North-East states the federal government in 2018 and 2020 would go on to release two hundred and forty-four, and six hundred members of this group.
The most recent attack serves as proof of the government’s failure in tackling the problem and the need to continue to hold it to its promise of ending the insecurity that has become commonplace.