UPDATE:
Africa's richest man, Aliko Dangote opens talks with Gboko community where soldiers killed 7 near his cement factory.
Nigerian billionaire and Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote, opened direct negotiations, Monday, with the Gboko community of Benue State where soldiers at his multibillion dollar cement factory killed seven locals.
The meeting came barely 24 hours after
PREMIUM TIMES exposed the massacre.
Mr. Dangote arrived in Gboko early Monday where he met with state officials, including Governor Gabriel Suswam, and the leaders of Gboko and Mbayion community where the killings took place March 18, before naming a high-powered committee to negotiate and reconcile with the community.
The committee, headed by Joseph Makoju, the immediate past Chief Operating Officer of the Dangote group, and former Managing Director, Power Holding Company of Nigeria, PHCN, held its first meeting in Gboko Tuesday.
The Chief Press Secretary to the Benue State Governor, Cletus Akwaya, confirmed to PREMIUM TIMES that the meeting took place.
Mr. Akwaya said the Benue State government had no hand in the killings, but noted that Mr. Dangote was ready to settle with the aggrieved community.
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For 19-year-old Terhile Jirbo, it was another answer to the call of nature. But when gunfire rang out that afternoon of March 18, what seemed a harmless routine would leave a fatal scar on him and his community in Gboko, a major town in the North-central state of Benue.
Members of Mbayion community in Gboko had responded after a soldier shot Mr. Jirbo for emptying his bowel near the Gboko Cement factory, the second most lucrative cement factory belonging to Africa’s richest man, Aliko Dangote. The attacker was one of two-dozen troops securing the multibillion-dollar factory.
In protest of the shooting, the community members marched outside the factory, and for hours, they asked for justice.
But as they hurled insults at the soldiers, asking them to leave the community, the troops responded with gunfire, according to state officials, witnesses, and community leaders.
Shot on the leg, one woman laid bloodied on the ground, and tried to crawl to safety. Then, a soldier closed up on her, pointed his rifle directly at her head and blasted, a witness said.
The woman’s brain matter splattered on another bullet-ridden victim, a man feigning death next to her. That man survived the attack even after a bullet ripped open his abdomen, spilling out his intestines.
When the shooting and the confusion subsided over three hours later, the death toll stood at seven – one woman, six men.
The victims – aged 36 and below – were all shot dead by troops of the Nigerian army, survivors and community members said.
By chance or fate, Mr. Jirbo, the teenager whose shooting by a soldier ignited the fracas, survived the attack. But he would be deformed for life, his mouth disfigured and emptied of almost all teeth in the upper region. A member of the more than two-dozen military team guarding the multibillion-dollar Gboko cement factory shot him in the mouth.
His offense: relieving himself near the Dangote factory complex, and refusing to pack the waste with his mouth when ordered to do so by the soldier.
In the outburst of violence that followed, the soldiers shot dead Doose Ornguze, 19, female; Luper Nongo Igber, 20, male; Timothy Terngu Mase, 21, male; Myom Mbaume, 25, male; Aondoyima Tyokase, 26, male; Iornenge Anum, 35, male and Aondoakura Tseeneke, 36, male.
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