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Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, yesterday expressed pity for President Muhammadu Buhari while stressing that he is surrounded by a wrong set of people that could not give him useful advice that would see the nation out of the trouble of herdsmen killings .
Ortom stated this while reacting to statement made by Minister of Defence, Mansur Muhammad Dan-Ali, who linked recent massacre of innocent people by suspected Fulani herdsmen in the state to the promulgation of the anti-open grazing laws and blockade of grazing routes.
The governor also maintained that the comment was a clear indication that the solution to the security crises confronting the country in not in sight, stressing that the position of the minister was tantamount to “dancing on the graves of those who were murdered in the state on January 1″.
He said: “If that minister said that, I think I will just conclude that the people around Buhari, our President, are a wrong set of people who are not capable of giving him quality advice and also proffer solutions to the problems we have here.
“These are people who are supposed to be supporting Mr. President and for their selfish interests, they are misinforming him, they are misdirecting him to do the wrong thing. Killings are going on in the state and you are talking about law, is there any law prohibiting cattle grazing in Adamawa, Plateau, Kaduna, Enugu, Ebonyi, Delta, Bayelsa, Ondo, Ekiti, Imo, Oyo and other states including Zamfara? Ortom described the statement as unfortunate, and noted that his administration did not commit any crime by enacting the law which he said would bring the perennial crisis between cattle herders and crop farmers to abrupt end.
The governor stated that people of the state would continue to be law abiding in the face of unprovoked attacks until justice was done. He noted that despite continued attacks on his people by armed Fulani herdsmen which he said are known, security agencies had tagged them as foreign terrorists from Islamic State In West Africa (ISWA), regretting why immunity which is the prerogative of the President, the Vice President as well as governors and their deputies had been extended to cattle and Fulani herdsmen by the present administration.
He added: “I have thought that immunity in this country belongs to the President, the Vice-President, governors and deputy governors, but by what I heard from the minister, if he said it, it means the federal government has provided immunity for Fulani herdsmen who killed, maimed and raped our women, they have also provided immunity for cattle in Nigeria which is very wrong.”
Ortom who asked the minister to apologise to the government and people of the state for the statement which he said was an insult to the state, described the security challenge in Benue as an ugly monster that is capable of consuming the entire country if nothing is done to tackle it headlong. He advised the Federal Government to rise up to the challenge confronting states since it is its responsibility to provide security for the lives and property of the citizenry.