The Benue State Government has issued a response to the clarifications made by the Presidency regarding President Muhammadu Buhari’s involvement in the security situation in the State.
In social commentaries on the security situation, the supposed poor intervention by President Buhari has been blamed on Governor Samuel Ortom’s stiff opposition to intervention.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Nathaniel Ikyur, has issued a statement in response to the Presidency's comments.
Ortom blames the presidency for Fulani militias
The statement indicates that with the latest position of the Presidency, it has become apparent that the killings in the state by suspected Fulani militias have the full endorsement of the Buhari government.
Moreover, the statement asserts that it is common knowledge that President Buhari has empowered and emboldened the Fulani pastoralists in their expansionist agenda, including killings. It further states that President Buhari has failed woefully in securing Nigeria, and Benue state, in particular.
The statement also notes that Governor Ortom has repeatedly pleaded with the Buhari government to intervene in the incessant invasion of Benue State by Fulani militias. Unfortunately, the President has chosen to endorse the invasion and merely asks the people of Benue to learn to accommodate their neighbours who derive pleasure in killing and dispossessing them of their ancestral lands.
The Benue State Government's statement claims that the Buhari administration has done nothing to help the people of Benue State. Besides unleashing Fulani killers on the people of Benue, the government has denied the state any meaningful projects in the last eight years, including the repair of federal government roads in the state which are now death traps.
Furthermore, the statement underscores that Governor Ortom was elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019 to defend the interest of the people of Benue and not to be a lackey in the hands of expansionists using every means to perpetrate evil against the Benue citizens.