Benue State Governor, Mr Samuel Ortom has called for the suspension of the 2023 National Population and Housing Census scheduled for May due to insecurity and to pave way for Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs), in the North Central geopolitical zone to return and resettle in their ancestral homes.
Ortom stated this in Makurdi when he received leaders of the Middle Belt Forum (MBF) who were in the state to commiserate with him over the killing of over 134 persons by suspected herdsmen.
While addressing the MBF led by its National President, Dr Bitrus Pogu, Ortom said it had become necessary for the Federal Government to shift the census as over two million indigenes of the state were still living in IDP camps and will not be counted because they need to be in their localities before they can participate in the exercise.
Ortom also decried the spate of sustained attacks on Benue communities by armed herdsmen over the years in which more than 6,000 people have died and property worth billions of Naira destroyed with the Federal Government doing little to help.
“I want to say that the Federal Government should suspend the issue of the census because it looks like the proposed census is coming with an agenda,” he said in a statement made available to newsmen.
“It should be on hold until they are able to restore security and all our IDPs go back to their ancestral lands to give all of them opportunities to be counted in their homes of birth because I understand from the National Population Commission that those to be counted must be counted in their localities.
“In Benue State alone, we have lost over 6,000 people. In the last few days alone, over 131 persons were killed and we are still counting because others are in the hospital,” the governor lamented.2