n April 5, 2021, a group of local militants in Bonta, a town in the Konshinsha Local Government Area of Nigeria’s northwestern Benue State, waylaid and killed some soldiers coming from Okpute, a neighbouring community in the Oju Local Government Area of the state. This was in the heat of the tensions and tit-for-tat killings between the native Tiv and Igede, who, respectively, populate Bonta and Okpute.
When the news of the slaying of the soldiers broke last year, details of how it happened barely emerged. One year after, PREMIUM TIMES interviewed several locals, eyewitnesses, and militants participating in the armed conflict.lost a total of 12 personnel, including a captain, a warrant officer, two sergeants, three corporals, one lance corporal and four privates, to the attack by the Bonta Boys.
In the middle of the violent conflict in March 2021, Mr Odeh had allegedly sent some bullets, using an army Hilux vehicle, locals said. Bonta residents we interviewed believed they were attacked with the ammunition the soldiers supplied to the Igede militants in Oju. “The soldiers you heard were killed were actually sent to Taraba State. But the brigadier-general made an arrangement with them and diverted two machine guns, 12 AK-47s with 8 cartons of bullets and some Lacacera bottles with bullets,” Mr Jembe claimed.
“What really annoyed our boys was that the army boys shot at them,” Mr Jembe said. “And once those bush boys hear the sound of a gun, that’s the end.”he Nigerian Army claimed the soldiers were killed by over 150 bandits who ambushed them while intervening in the warring communities to ensure peace was restored.
The army said its troops commenced a search with a close air raid in a rescue operation for the missing officer and the 11 other soldiers, noting that “lots of the bandits were killed while several others scattered and fled in different directions.”However, residents of Gbinde village where the soldiers were executed said the killer Bonta boys were not as many as the army claimed.
Mr Egbodo also said that the soldiers were not sent on a peace mission to Bonta as the army claimed, noting “they [the soldiers] were on a different assignment” when the militants ambushed them.ollowing the killing of their colleagues, over a hundred soldiers stormed Bonta in combat fashion, firing heavy artillery into the north and south of the community and killing innocent citizens.
We know them. They're TERRORISTS in uniform.
TheNigerianArmyIsATerrorGroup
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