By Peter Shande Esq
We have read the recent statement against Governor Samuel Ortom from one Salihu Mohammed claiming to be the Chairman of Arewa Youths for Peace and Development. In that statement widely circulated in the media, the group demanded that the Benue State Governor tender an apology to Governor Bala Mohammed of Bauchi State. From their disposition, they are disqualified from appreciating the issues raised by the Governor of Benue State in respect to the raging security challenges facing Benue State and Nigeria in general. As they say, he who feels it, knows it.
Governor Samuel Ortom, has over the years been at the threshold of Fulani menace. As chairman of Guma Local Government council in the nineties, he experienced first hand the atrocities of the Fulani.
We know the Arewa Youths For Peace and Development and their allies are hired to react to issues affecting governor Bala Mohammed and we are not in any position to stop their humungous harvest from the rich purse of the Bauchi state treasury.
In contrast, the people of Benue state have been victims of Fulani carnage for years. Several communities across the state have been destroyed by armed Fulani herdsmen. They have now rendered over 800,000 people homeless who now live in IDP camps. It was therefore provocative and an insult to the sensibilities of the people of Benue and Nigeria for the Bauchi governor to support Fulani herdsmen to be carrying AK47 assault riffles while herding their cattle.
What Governor Ortom has been saying about the Fulani killer herders is the truth. We do not write the news but we have heard and seen on television, read in the newspapers how the Fulani herdsmen have continued to terrorise communities in the country. This is the reason why they have been given marching orders from the South West. It took the intervention of the Governors of Kano, Kebbi and Zamfara States to join their South West counterparts to find a political solution to the quit order.
Our take on the spurious demands by the Salihu led Arewa Youth group is that the Fulani menace has dominated the six years Governor Ortom has spent as the Governor of Benue State. It is unfortunate to say that he has buried more citizens killed by the Fulani than all the past administrations put together. The invasion by the Fulani herdsmen on Benue communities is more horrendous than the killings in Zaki Biam, by the military under the regime of President Olusegun Obasanjo. The gravity of the Fulani menace even made former President Obasanjo to visit, condole and commiserate with the people of the state.
These atrocities have spread from Benue to Plateau, Taraba, Nasarawa, Katsina, Sokoto, Ogun, Zamfara, Ondo, Ekiti and the entire South Eastern States. We are therefore not concerned from where the leaders of Arewa Youths for Peace and Development come from, but for us in Benue, this carnage has been with us over the years. It became more alarming as it appeared to be an annihilation of the people. And from 2017, Governor Samuel Ortom alerted President Buhari over the threats expressed by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore and Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria.
This alert through official correspondences and visits to the presidency fell on deaf ears. Following agitations from the people of the state, Governor Ortom went further to enact the law prohibiting Open Grazing in July 2017 as a way of giving legal cover to the efforts of the state government to contain the menace. The leadership of the Fulani organisations threatened to wreck havoc on the state if the law was not repealed. Since then, their members have continued to cause mayhem to our people, killing, maiming and raping our mother’s and daughters at will.
The Arewa Youth Group is as unpatriotic in their actions as their intent to cast aspersions on Governor Ortom have turned out to be. It is a fact that the federal government has been lenient towards the criminal Fulani herdsmen and their leadership. This is a band of terrorists gang that has held Nigeria to ransom, raping, burning and killing citizens and none has been apprehended and prosecuted. To make matters worse, they are now armtwisting the federal government to grant them amnesty. For what? These are the same groups of people Governor Bala Mohammed is encouraging to carry dangerous weapons to continue to kill our people. We cannot therefore sit back and watch.
Truth be told, there’s no patriotism, nationalism or even fair mindedness how the Bauchi governor accused Governor Samuel Ortom of instigating the country against the killer herdsmen. There’s no truth whatsoever in this. Governor Bala has not shown patriotism by asking killer herdsmen to bear arms. He has indeed not defended the rights to life and peace of the people of Bauchi whom he swore to protect as governor.
And it is gruesomely patronizing to assert by the group that Governor Bala Mohammed has been committed to the defence of the rights of all citizens, majority and minority, including ethnic and religion minorities, meting out justice without fear or favour when crimes are committed.
Let Arewa Youths be reminded that Governor Ortom is a thorough-bred democrat who was first elected the executive Chairman of Guma local government in 1992. He’s therefore not an accidental leader.
In the same vein, we vehemently object to the allegation that Samuel Ortom is the “author of crises affecting Fulani people in the country.” This is outright falsehood. If anything, the strains the Governor has been through are caused by the wanton killing of innocent farmers by Fulani herdsmen in Benue state. The Fulani menace has threatened our farming culture which is the standard bearing of our state. As the Food Basket of the nation, how can we maintain it if our crops have become fodder for Fulani cows while our farmlands have become grazing fields for the cattle?
We stand with our Governor on this line of advice, that the Bauchi state governor should apologise to Nigerians for the reckless statement supporting armed herdsmen in carrying weapons of mass destruction.
Lastly, we are proud to identify with the anti-open grazing law introduced by Governor Ortom. This is a law that the whole country now believes in its efficacy as the only solution to the menace of the Fulani herdsmen.
▪︎ Shande is the National President Benue Alliance for Truth and Justice