The Tiv communities in Taraba State have petitioned the Taraba State government against the attempt to forcefully and illegally evict them from their ancestral land in Wukari, Ibi, Donga local government areas.
It is alleged that the state government is using the Nigerian Army to claim they have taken over the land to perfect its plan, and members of the community should vacate as the land now belongs to the military.
In a letter to the Chief of Defence Staff by the counsel to the Tiv communities in Taraba State, Prof. Sebastine Hon, SAN, those lands in the local government areas have already been marked as a military zone.
The letter indicates that neither the state government nor the Nigerian Army had ever approached the community for compensation or any related discussion concerning the land.
The community in the letter urged the Chief of Defence Staff to stop the illegal invasion and attempt to confiscate their ancestral lands, adding the illegal signposts upon which the inscription “Military Zone Keep Off” is written should also be removed.
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The petition reads in parts: “We have been briefed and our services retained over the above subject matter by the Community leaders of the Tiv speaking Communities in Wukari, Ibi, and Kongo LOAs of Taraba State
“Our Clients have briefed us that on or about the 17th day of April, 2025, officials of the Taraba State Government, accompanied by armed personnel of the Nigerian Army, stormed Tiv farmlands stretching from Ikyaior to Jandekyula and down to interior and declaring all those communities, villages and vastly-expansive parcels of land as a ‘military zone.” The officials further ordered our Clients, made up of indigenous Tiv men, women and children, to vacate their lands, which, according to the invaders, had been acquired for army barracks, a shooting range and other military activities.
“The very next day, namely, 18th April, 2025, several bulldozers were brought unto, and they started excavating and levelling our Clients’ lands, under the watch of heavily-armed military personnel. Signposts marked “Military Zone Keep Ofr were also erected on the land, spanning over eight (8) kilometers by six (6) kilometres’ radius. The signpost are on the land till date.
“it took the collective civil protests, lasting for several days, of female adults of our Clients’ Communities (some of whom were demonstrating half-naked), for the armed illegal invasion to be halted. However, the illegally-erected signposts are still on our Clients’ land.
“We hereby state categorically that there was no time our Clients’ Communities and families were approached to negotiate to be paid compensation over their ancestral lands by the Military, the Taraba State Government or any institution/body. In other words, pursuant to the express provisions of sections 43 and 44(1) of the 1999 Constitution as amended, our Clients’ lands cannot be compulsorily acquired for any alleged military or other public purpose without payment to our Clients of adequate. compensation.
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“We further state that the history of ceaseless aggression against the Tiv people in Taraba State, rather than any intended public purpose, is responsible for this inglorious outing on the part of the Nigerian Army and the Taraba State Government. We strongly counsel that the Nigerian Army should not be used by any State, institution, group of persons or individual to fuel ethnic tensions and or assist one ethnic group to illegally oust another ethnic group from their ancestry and traditional heritage.”
