Suspected herdsmen behead graduate farmer in

A farmer, Ndubuisi Uzoma, has been beheaded in his farm at Iddo community along the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport Road, Abuja by assailants suspected to be Fulani herdsmen.

The headless corpse of the university graduate was found in the pool of his blood last Sunday by his relations, who went in search of him when he failed to return from the farm.

The deceased’s elder sister, Chidimma Umeh, told Northern City News that Uzoma had earlier complained that he was having issues with Fulani herdsmen who grazed their cattle on his farm.

She stated that the young man stayed late in the farm in order to prevent the herdsmen from encroaching on his farm and destroying his crops.

Weeping profusely while talking to our correspondent, the bereaved woman lamented the loss of his brother, whom she said took to farming because he could not secure a job after graduating from the university.

“I lost my brother on Saturday, he left in the morning and till night, I didn’t see him and I told my husband about it. We went to his farm to search for him, that was when I saw blood and I shouted, ‘Jesus, my brother is gone.’ Look at my brother’s corpse, there is no head, it’s been cut off, they beheaded my brother,” she sobbed.

Chidimma said that the case was reported to the police but no arrests had been made.

She said, “They have killed my brother. We went to the police to report and my husband also visited the chief to inform him about it, but no one has been arrested.

“He was a graduate, he was engaging in farming because he could not secure a job. If he was working in the office, he wouldn’t have died like that.”

Corroborating his wife, Umeh said the deceased had always complained about the herdsmen who invaded his farm, noting that the dastardly act might have been perpetrated by them.

Umeh said, “On Saturday night when I came back from work around 11.30pm, because I closed late, l met my wife and son going out, she said they were going to look for her brother. I said maybe he was with some of his friends to watch football match on the television.

“Because the farm is far, we decided to go there the next day. At the farm, my wife saw blood and she shouted. We went to the police and we got a vehicle to evacuate the body to the mortuary. Ndubuisi didn’t have problem with anyone, he only complained about the encroachment on his farm by Fulani herdsmen and I believe they killed him.”

The District head of Iddo, Bello Seidu, confirmed the incident, saying such a thing had not happened in the area before.

The leader of the Igbo residents in the community, Sunday Chukwuneke, stated that he had lived in Iddo for a long time, noting that, that was the first time such a killing would occur.

“I never heard anything like this since I started living in Iddo. Many people called me about the incident and I visited his (Uzoma’s) relations and they said they didn’t have problem with anybody. They explained that he usually complained that Fulani people were encroaching on his farm, that is why he comes back late from the farm between 6:30 and 7pm. We went to the farm and we saw everything,” he narrated. - Punch