A security consultant, Captain Aliyu Umar (Retired), has blamed the recent killings in Benue State on an alleged conspiracy by bandits.

Umar stated this on Channels Television’s breakfast show, Sunrise Daily where he decried the continued bloodshed.

He said, “A conspiracy of silence is being on. It has been there and it is still there,” “In an apparent reference to the role played by security officials in the reported killings in the north-central state.

“A conspiracy to start with is a group of people coming together to do something harmful. They conspire to do that. So we can look at the bandits killing our citizens as conspirators.”

Benue State has been in the eye of the storm since the wake of this year following reported killings of over 70 indigenes of the state.

Subsequently, there seems to be series of a bloodbath in the state known as the Food Basket of the Nation, thereby leaving behind tales of sorrow and grief.

But the killings, however, took a new dimension on Tuesday when suspected herdsmen invaded a Catholic church and unleashed terror on Ayar Mbalom community in the Gwer East Local Government Area of the state, thereby killing two Reverend Fathers and 17 others.

According to Umar, the recent call for self-defence made by prominent Nigerians including a former Chief of Army Staff, Lieutenant General Theophilus Danjuma, is a loss of confidence in the nation’s security architecture.

He added, “People are calling for self-defence. That itself on my database is an indication that there is a loss of confidence, a vote of no-confidence in the nation’s security apparatus.

“When the state cannot begin to take custody of that, naturally as human beings who are wired in our DNA to survive, I am going to look for another means.”

Most Nigerians have been calling for the sack of the nation’s security chiefs following the continued attacks in parts of the country.