A farmer in Kastina-Ala Local Government Area of Benue State has been forced to abandon his crops and go into hiding after suspected local bandits demanded N500,000 as a condition for allowing him to harvest what he had planted, in an ordeal that also saw his wife briefly abducted and tortured.
The farmer’s identity remains undisclosed, but his son, John James, a 300-level student at Benue State University, recounted the family’s experience at a capacity-building workshop on safety, security rights, and access to justice organised by the Socio-Economic Rights and Accountability Project in Makurdi. According to James, the ordeal began roughly two weeks ago when armed men invaded his parents’ home in Mbagena Council Ward at night while his father, who combines farming with public service, was asleep alongside his mother. “About two weeks ago, terrorists invaded his compound in the night where he was sleeping alongside my mother after work. They charged him to pay a ransom of N500,000. My father pleaded with them because there was nothing at the moment. He had to plead with them for our lives because contacting the security will only worsen the situation,” James said.
The attackers initially gave a three-day deadline, later extending it to a week once the farmer explained he hadn’t yet harvested his groundnut, beniseed, and soyabean crops, the very produce he needed to sell in order to raise the ransom in the first place. But while he was still working to gather the money, the situation escalated sharply. While the farmer was away attending a burial ceremony near Kastina-Ala town, the attackers returned and abducted his wife, accusing him of deliberately stalling on payment.
His wife was eventually released after one of the abductors reportedly took pity on her visible distress, but not before enduring what James described as torture. “She was freed but not without being tortured. As I talk to you now, my mother is suffering emotionally and physically from the pains she suffered in the course of the torture,” he said.
Determined to secure his family’s safety, the farmer rallied support from friends and relatives and managed to raise N200,000, which he delivered to the bandits at midnight on Thursday. That partial payment bought him only limited access to his own farm. “When my father returned and handed them the money, they said it was not enough, that he had to complete it to N500,000 before he would be allowed to harvest anything from his farm,” James said, describing how his father was permitted to harvest only a portion of his crops before being told to pay the remaining N300,000 for the rest.
With the threats ongoing and the balance still unpaid, the farmer has now fled the area entirely, leaving much of his harvest behind and unreachable. “They are still threatening my father for the remaining amount, and he is on the run for fear of the unknown. He can’t go back to harvest everything now until he gets all the money,” James said.
Adding to the family’s frustration is the fact that some of the attackers are reportedly not strangers to the area at all. “These people are moving freely in our vicinity, and they are local bandits. In fact, some of them are known to the villagers because they are from the same community,” James alleged.
He was careful to note that while this was the first time his father had faced a ransom demand specifically tied to farm access, it wasn’t his first encounter with the bandits, having previously had money and goods stolen during earlier attacks, a pattern James said many other residents in the community have also experienced repeatedly.
James further raised concerns about a climate of fear that discourages residents from seeking police help at all, alleging that some villagers who previously reported attacks to law enforcement were later targeted and killed by the bandits in apparent retaliation. “The villagers hardly report to police because those who attempted were killed by the bandits,” he claimed.
The SERAP workshop where James shared his family’s story was designed specifically to give community members a platform to discuss their experiences with insecurity while learning how to pursue accountability and understand their rights regarding safety and justice.
