According to a report by Centapost on 27 April 2021, Fulani militants
attacked Abagena Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camp (just outside Benue State capital, Markudi) in the night of 26 April 2021, killing 11 IDPs and wounding 9 others. Angry youths, enraged by the killings, blocked the Makurdi-Lafia road with the dead bodies to protest the lack of security for IDPs.
Frans Veerman, Managing director of World Watch Research, comments: "The IDP camps are full of civilians (many of them Christians) who have fled their homes seeking refuge from the jihadist violence. But if they are not even safe in the shadow of the state capital, where can they go?‚ According to the Benue State governor speaking on 27 April 2021 to the protesting youths, over
70 people were killed in Benue State in the last two weeks of April (Premium Times, 27 April 2021).
Angry Nigerian youth (YouTube video, 27 April 2021), who were eyewitnesses of the Abagena attack, vented their frustration against President Buhari for having to give up their weapons as part of the federal government"s 2019
gun ownership ban (The Guardian, 31 May 2019). They feel that it is more than unjust that they could now not defend themselves when Fulani militia attacked them with automatic rifles, which had not been confiscated by the federal government.‚ Thus it would seem that President Buhari"s government is implicitly supporting the Fulani militia and pushing the same agenda: The Islamization of Nigeria."
