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Suspected herders have reportedly hacked a farmer to death and allegedly raped a woman at Paikon Bassa community in Gurdi ward of Abaji Area Council of the FCT.
A resident of Gurdi, identified as Wokili Bala, said the incident happened on Saturday, around 11:23am when the herders invaded a guinea corn farm with cows their cows.
He said the deceased farmer alongside his wife and two of their children were harvesting corn when the cows belonging to the herders entered the farm eating up guinea corn.
He said the two children approached the herders and asked them to move their cows out of the farm, which he said resulted to a misunderstanding.
“As the man’s children were quarrelling with the herders for moving their cows into the farm to eat up the guinea corn, trouble now broke loose, and one of the herders pulled out a machete,” he said.
According to him, the father of the children upon discovering the altercation also waded in to save his children from being attacked.
“It was in the process of the farmer trying to defend his children that one of the herders pulled out a machete and stabbed him on the head,” he said.
He said the children upon discovering their father had fallen to the ground, quickly escaped, and that some of the herders trapped the woman and raped her.
“Before the man’s children returned from the house after they went to report the incident, the man had already given up while the woman had been raped,” he said.
Bala said the corpse of the farmer had been buried while the woman was taken to the hospital for medical attention.
Aso Metro gathered that the herders were migrating from neighbouring Zago village in Lapai area of Niger State to another community when they went into the farm with their cows.
A member of the vigilante from Gurdi identified as Saidu Garba, who also confirmed the incident said vigilantes have been mobilised to trace the fleeing herders.
“Actually, when vigilantes received information about the incident, we quickly mobilised to the farm but the herders had fled with their cows but we are tracing their location,” he said.
The spokeswoman of the FCT police command, SP Adeh Josephine, was yet to confirm the incident at the time of filing the report.
