Ortom decries Buhari’s insistence on grazing routes despite rising insecurity

Samuel Ortom, Benue State governor, has expressed worry over the insistence of President Muhammadu Buhari on reviving grazing routes despite the rising insecurity caused by open grazing across the country.

Ortom said that the state would resist any move by the Federal Government to take any land in the state for open grazing, saying that the President should be ready to kill all indigenes of the state in the process.

President Buhari had last Thursday approved recommendations of a committee to review with dispatch 368 grazing sites, across 25 states in the country, and to determine the levels of encroachment.

Garba Shehu, the President’s senior special assistant on Media and Publicity, confirmed this in a statement.

He said the committee was chaired by the Chief of Staff to the President, Ibrahim Gambari.

Garba added that among others, the committee had recommended the collection of field data collection on 368 Grazing Reserves across 25 states to assess encroachment and encroachers, stakeholder engagements and sensitisation.

The Southern Governors and groups had expressed shock at the decision of the Federal Government to go ahead with the plan despite the stiff opposition to it by the people of Southern Nigeria.

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Also various Southern groups, including Yoruba socio-cultural organisation, Afenifere; Igbo socio-cultural group, Ohanaeze; and the Pan Niger Delta Forum, also launched a heavy attack against the President’s order.

However, in an interview with Channels Television breakfast programme, Sunrise Daily, on Tuesday, the Benue State Governor said the people of the state had vowed to vehemently resist any move to take land in the state for open grazing.

Ortom accused the Federal Government of not doing enough to check the spate of insecurity in the state and the massacre of Benue indigenes by suspected Fulani herdsmen despite the fact that he reported several threat by the group to the President.

The governor debunked media reports that he was arming militia in the state, stressing that the reports were sponsored to tarnish his image and the good work he is doing in Benue State.

“They have been killing our people and recently our people told me to tell the President, since I have been blocked from having access to him, and if this is the only medium I have to tell him that let him come and kill everybody in Benue State to have our land for his kinsmen to do what they want,” Ortom said.

He lamented that several months after he was attacked by terrorists in his state, there was no report from the security agencies on those responsible for the attack, adding that the security agencies were not doing enough to check the spate of killings in Benue State.

According to him, “Even right from 2017 when Miyetti Allah said they would not obey the anti-grazing law and l alerted the President; nothing was done.

“I wrote to all the security agencies in Nigeria, not until 2018 January when more than 78 people were massacre in Benue State. All I heard from the President is that my people should learn to live with their neighbours”.