IRKED by the constant attacks on farmers in Benue State by herdsmen, the state
governor, Chief Samuel Ortom, has called on the
herdsmen to vacate the state immediately, just as he said the people of the state might
resort to self defence because they have been pushed to the wall. Reacting to the
attack at the weekend on Agwabi Village, in Binev council ward of Buruku Local
Government Area of the state, Ortom, who could not hide his feelings, went wild and
stated that the state was under siege, adding that the herdsmen had virtually taken over
the land in the state.
He submitted that enough was enough for the daily killings of the people of the state.
According to him, “it is a bad situation now, everyday you hear my people are being
killed, raped by these mercenaries, they do not have respect for rule of law neither for
security personnel.
“These are wicked mercenaries under the guise of herdsmen attacking us and taking
over our farmland. I have said it several times that we do not have land for grazing in
the state, let them move out of the state. “There is a limit to which I can appeal to my
people to restrain, from reprisal attack, if all of them are killed, then I will be the next
target.
The problem is that if you push them away from one point, they move to another point
and their style is to kill, destroy farmland and take over the land.” When asked about
the herders’ allegation of the youths in the state rustling their cows, the governor
debunked the allegation, saying: “it is the criminal elements among them that always go
and steal their cows” and queried whether rustling of cows was commensurate with
human life.
He further said the herders, most times, hid under rustling of cows to perpetrate evil,
“for instance, in my village, they claimed that my people rustled their cows and they
went ahead to kill 50 of my people and took over the land, this is genocide.”
The governor also decried the situation where none of the herders or perpetrators of
these dastardly acts had ever been arrested or killed by security men, despite their
presence in places where they had operated, noting that “in Buruku, there were military
men and mobile policemen stationed there.”
Meanwhile, as efforts to rescue the Catholic priest, Reverend Father John Adeyi from his
abductors seem to be hanging in the balance, Governor Ortom has offered to pay N5
million for information on the whereabouts of the priest. Reverend Father Adeyi, a Vicar
General of Otukpo Catholic Diocese, was, about a month ago, abducted on Enugu-
Otukpa Road about 2.00pm on April 24, 2016.
According to a statement issued by the Special Adviser on Media and ICT to the
governor, Mr Tahav Agerzua, the governor regretted that one month after the
unfortunate incident, security agents were yet to apprehend the culprits and rescue the
priest, appealing to members of the public to assist with information about the
whereabouts of the priest.
He said any person or group who offered such information would be paid N5 million as
reward and expressed worries of the government and people of the state on the
incident. He said security agents have acted on previous information and combed
several places without positive results, hence the imperative of making the offer.
Governor Ortom also solicited sustained prayers for the release of the priest adding that
with God, nothing is impossible. He assured the Christian community that the
government and entire people of the state were in solidarity with them for the rescue of
the priest.
It will be recalled that suspected kidnappers had opened contact with relatives of the
priest few hours after he was kidnapped where the sum of N10million was demanded
as ransom but was said to have been reduced to N2million after negotiation.
The N2million was said to have been paid four days after the abduction with the
promise to release the priest later that Wednesday. It was however gathered that
efforts by relatives to locate him after the payment of ransom was unsuccessful as all
the contact lines have since been switched off.”
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