The Berom Educational and Cultural Organisation (BECO) has said the destruction of food crops by suspected Fulani herderswas unacceptable and the government must workout ways to compensate the victims.


BECO notes “with deep concern and sadness, the continued malicious and heartless destruction of farm crops which constitute the mainstay of rural economy of  farming communities in Barkin Ladi and Riyom local government areas” of Plateau State, Da Chollom Gyang  Secretary General of BECO stressed.


Making  the organisation’s position known in a statement, he reiterated that  the latest cases are those of Sho, Rim, Jol and Sopp villages in Barkin Ladi and Riyom local government areas respectively, where farms grown with crops covering several hectares  are  maliciously destroyed daily by bandits, in an unseen display of gross insensitivity.


“BECO is concerned that this evil act of malicious destruction of farm crops in the affected communities is part of a grand design to ruin the local economy, and impoverish our communities as well as creat a permanent state of insecurity that threatens both the lives and livelihoods of the villagers as a prelude to displace and disinherit them of their ancestral habitat and land”, he said.


According to him,  given the ravaging consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic on both “macro and micro economies world wide, the negative effects of the destruction of crops on our rural dwellers can only be imagined,” he fumed.


He stressed that “It beats the imagination to think that the very bandits who inaugurated the evil agenda of seting their cattle on farms of our people have since deepened their cultivation of grabbed lands and are steadily attaining food sufficiency levels, while pushing our communities into a state of unmitigated socio-economic vulnerability. This is absolutely unacceptable.




“BECO is urging the Plateau State government to, as a matter of urgency, extent its policy of financial compensation to victims of loses from deliberate and direct economic sabotage to the affected farmers and communities. Doing so will help to stabilise the victims and prevent the ultimate evil agenda by bandits to displace and disinherit the affected communities.


“BECO also wants the law enforcement agencies to ensure that all the bandits  arrested in connection to the malicious  acts be prosecuted and made to pay for the destroyed crops  in full in addition to subsequent  conviction by the court of law. This will serve as a neccessary deterrence to all criminally minded bandits,”  he reiterated.