Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has described the allegation over killings in the state by former Governor George Akume as baseless and unfounded.
The former governor, now a senator, told reporters after he led a delegation of the All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders on a visit to President Muhammadu Buhari the state government was behind killings in the state.
But Ortom, who spoke through a statement by his Special Adviser (SA) on Media and ICT, Tahav Agerzua, described the allegation as unfounded.
The statement reads: “Even those he seeks to impress at the expense of the people of the state will no doubt, sooner than later, realise that he has no positive value.
“A few days back, the Minister of Transportation, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, made a similar baseless and reckless claim on Channels Television, even as the APC National Chairman, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, sang the same song few months earlier. It is a clear case of blaming the victim.
“Yet, we wonder what kind of logic exists in the senator and his co-travellers’ worldview that a government popularly elected by the people for their protection and preservation will turn round to arrange the mass murder of the same people.
“Not even the open admission of responsibility for the killings by several Fulani groups, including the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and the Fulani Nationality Movement, has persuaded the renegade senator to tone down on his toxic rhetoric.
“On Tuesday, May 30, 2017, the leaders of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore addressed a media briefing in Abuja that the crisis in Benue State is a struggle for the natural resources of Benue and that they would mobilise their kith and kin to invade the state and resist the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law 2017.
“Barely 48 hours after the mass burial of 73 victims of the recent herdsmen attacks in Benue, the National Vice President of Miyetti Allah Cattle Herders Association, Husaini Yusuf Bosso, warned that more blood would be shed in the state if the anti-grazing law introduced by Governor Ortom is not completely scrapped.
“Other Fulani leaders, including Garus Gololo, claimed responsibility for the Benue attacks and killings, citing justification for rustled cattle.
“The Fulani Nationality Movement met in Kano and issued a statement that the Benue attacks were a continuation of the 1804 Jihad.
“The police also arrested some of the leaders of Fulani herdsmen who attacked and killed people in Benue State, including police officers in Keana, Awe Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.”
