Ortom Fires Back at Presidency, Alleges Benue Killings Has Endorsement of Buhari’s Administration

*SOKAPU blames FG, state govt for persistent killings, kidnappings in Southern Kaduna

*Diri orders prosecution of herders for breaching anti-grazing law 

George Okoh in Makurdi, John Shiklam in Kaduna and Olusegun Samuel in Yenagoa

The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has once again accused President Muhammadu Buhari of complicity in the killings in the state.
Similarly, the Southern Kaduna Peoples Union (SOKAPU) yesterday accused the federal and the Kaduna state government for allegedly refusing to arrest and prosecute bandits terrorising communities in the southern part of Kaduna state.

Relatedly, Bayelsa State Governor, Senator Douye Diri, yesterday directed security agencies to clamp down on violators of the state’s anti-open grazing law.
Ortom made the allegation in a statement in response to a previous statement by spokesman of the President, Mr. Garba Shehu, who had accused the Benue State Governor of thwarting efforts of the federal government in addressing the killings in the state.
According to Ortom, the statement from Shehu was a betrayal to Benue people.

 Ortom, in the statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur said: “Shehu Garba’s infantile statement on the security situation in Benue State has once again confirmed our position that the killings and mass murder in Benue by the Fulani militia has the full endorsement of the Buhari government.
“It also goes to confirm that the presidential spokesman does not only speak for Buhari, but for some terrorist Fulani groups too.

“Indeed, the presidential spokesman’s futile attempts to twist events and history in Benue State is unfortunate and reprehensible. It shows how much he and others in that league have misled the government and Nigerian people in the last inglorious eight years.”
The statement further read: “It is common knowledge that as the Commander-in-Chief, Buhari has empowered and emboldened the Fulani pastoralists in their expansionist agenda including killings.

“It is equally a known fact that President Buhari has failed woefully in securing Nigeria, and Benue state in particular.
“It is on record that Governor Samuel Ortom has repeatedly pleaded with the Buhari government to intervene in the incessant invasion of Benue State by Fulani militias. The president sadly chooses to endorse the invasion and merely asks our people to learn to accommodate their neighbours who derive pleasure in killing and dispossessing them of their ancestral lands.”

Ortom further alleged that, “what the Buhari administration has done to our people through the Fulani militants as confirmed by Shehu Garba is to spit on the graves of our compatriots mowed down needlessly by Fulani militia. We shall not forget these atrocities.
“Besides unleashing Fulani killers on our people, the Buhari government denied Benue State any meaningful project in the last eight years, including the repair of federal government roads in the state which are now death traps.

“We have tried in vain to find out the offense of Benue people, but we found none, except that our people are responsible, law abiding citizens.
“For the avoidance of doubt, Governor Samuel Ortom was elected in 2015, and re-elected in 2019, to defend the interest of the people of Benue and never to be a lackey in the hands of expansionists using every means to perpetrate evil against the Benue citizens.”

According to Ortom, through Shehu’s latest statement, the presidency clearly demonstrated that he was right when he consistently accused the APC-led federal government of complicity in the killings orchestrated against Benue people by the Fulani herdsmen as allegedly represented by Miyetti Allah Kautal, Fulani Nationality Movement, FUNAM and other Fulani socio cultural groups.

“If the Presidency can find it convenient to lay the blame of the massive killings that the Fulani have continued to perpetrate in Benue on Governor Ortom, what can it say of the massacre and kidnappings in Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto and President Buhari’s home state of Katsina among other states where the killing of innocent citizens has continued unchallenged?

“The Presidency has shown in this recent public statement that they have placed cows above human lives and made the animals to urinate on the graves of those they massacred in Benue and elsewhere across the country. If not, they wouldn’t have gone to town to mock the slain in their graves.
“It is an insult on Benue people, including those killed and butchered children, the maimed, raped and abused women and the over two million people living under squalid conditions in Nigeria’s largest Internally Displaced Camps in the state.

“The Presidency’s statement is a reckless stab by agents of genocide against the Benue people by blaming the victims.
“Let Garba Shehu and occupants of the current presidential villa be informed that the ongoing pogrom in Benue State is a designed plot by the Fulani against the Benue people to disposses them of their lands and these atrocities are well documented. The perpetrators are also well known to local and international authorities. By this recent posturing, everyone is now aware that the perpetrators have the backing and sympathy of the federal government.

“The Presidency’s attempt to mock Governor Ortom over the loss of his senatorial seat and the PDP in the governorship has furthermore strengthened our belief that the massive deployment of security personnel for the elections in the state was planned and hatched in the presidential villa and supervised by agents of the APC.

“But let the Presidential spokesman remember that Governor Ortom is extremely grateful to the people of the state for always giving him the opportunity to serve them. “As he has often quoted Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” The Governor stands for justice, equity and fairness and no amount of blackmail and impunity as orchestrated by the Buhari administration can make him to change his advocacy against injustice and oppression.

“In fact, before the elections, Governor Ortom had publicly stated that he was ready to sacrifice his senatorial ambition for the sake of the survival of democracy where the likes of Garba Shehu and their collaborators would rather want it truncated. It is public knowledge that the 2023 elections were heavily rigged using some security operatives, money, federal might and electronic means. “Governor Ortom’s decision not to challenge the result of the Benue North West Senatorial election in court again points to the fact that he is not a selfish and desperate politician.

“Benue people are well aware that Governor Ortom has been a target of the Buhari presidency since 2017 when he boldly signed a law banning open grazing of livestock in the state.”

He added: “The governor has been subjected to many coordinated media attacks, probes, freezing of state accounts and other punitive measures to frustrate and cripple his administration. While other states were given infrastructural loans, Benue under Governor Ortom was denied access to the funds.

“The same thing happened when the Benue State Government met all requirements to secure N42 billion to clear the backlog of salaries, pensions and gratuity.

“In a nutshell, the presidency’s statement is the height of recklessness and gross insensitivity against the people of Benue. It is on record that Governor Ortom has given full cooperation to all layers of security agencies working in the state to help curtail the menace of the Fulani killing squad displacing various communities in the state and other internal security skirmishes.

Between 2015 and this year, Governor Ortom has constantly held security meetings and gathered intelligence to support security agencies operating in the state. He has however consistently pointed out that the security agencies are grossly underfunded and deserve to be better equipped and motivated to tackle insecurity in the country.

“It is therefore laughable when Shehu ignorantly tries to whip up an unfounded lie against the Governor.

Governor Ortom is performing his duty as Governor of Benue State and will continue to do so until May 29, 2023 when he leaves office. We expect the outgoing President to also do what he was voted to do for Nigerians.

“Lastly, we are tempted to conclude that President Buhari was not aware of Garba Shehu’s statement, because if the President were aware, he would not have permitted his media aide to release a statement that rather indicts him as Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces for abdicating his constitutional duty of providing security to Benue State and other parts of the country, admitting failure and opting to blame a state governor.”

SOKAPU Blames FG, State Govt for Persistent Killings, Kidnappings in Southern Kaduna

Meanwhile, SOKAPU has accused the federal and the Kaduna state government for allegedly refusing to arrest and prosecute bandits terrorising communities in the southern part of Kaduna state.

President SOKAPU, Awemi Maisamari, made the accusation at a news conference in Kaduna.

The SOKAPU President also lamented the, “silence of Amnesty International (AI),

the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Africa Union (AU), the CommonWealth of Nations and the United Nations (UN) over the pogrom going on Southern Kaduna.”

Maisamari said in the past six years, about 63 Atyap communities had been attacked and hundreds of people killed by invading armed herdsmen without

a single arrest and persecution by the authorities.

“Ironically, scores of Atyap leaders have been arrested and put in jail over trumped up charges in the violence in which they are the victims”, he said.

He said the latest of such attacks was on April 15, 2023, in Runji village, Zangon Kataf LGA, where “armed herdsmen attacked the community at about 1am, killed 33 people, mostly women and children and burnt over 40 houses.”

Maisamari added, “So far, there has been an apparent failure or refusal by the Kaduna State government under Mallam Nasir el-Rufai and the Muhammadu Buhari led Federal Government to apprehend and prosecute the killers.

“We interpret this as a clear indication of their complicity in the genocide in various parts of Southern Kaduna.”

He said further, “This belief is reinforced by the fact that survivors are usually left to die of their wounds or other forms of suffering as no relieve is sent to them.

“Again, to show that the Fulani militia have the backing of especially Kaduna State government, anytime a Fulani cow gets lost or any Fulani is harmed by suspected Southern Kaduna natives, the entire area where the incident is suspected to have happened is raided by combat happy security personnel.

“This usually culminates in youths and community leaders being taken to police detention or prison custody.”

In addition, Maisamari said “Apart from the deadly invasions, the daily kidnapping of persons and unscheduled blocking of highways by terrorists in Southern Kaduna has not stopped.”

He said, “Most of these now go unreported because of their frequency and the remoteness of locations.

“Now, only mass abductions or cases involving notable individuals are reported.

In one such recent reported case on April 4, 2023, armed terrorists invaded Government Secondary School Awon, Kachia LGA in Southern Kaduna and kidnapped 10 students in broad daylight, eight of them school girls. Instead of pursuing and apprehending the terrorists, all Kaduna state government does is to announce and document the occurrence of such crimes carried out just to wait for the next one.

“After 15 harrowing days in the jungle in the hands of their captors, we have been informed that the girls have managed to escape and are now in the custody of the government.

“We are indeed happy about this development and we praise God for his grace…”

The SOKAPU President said further that, “many farm lands with ripe crops are often consumed by fulani herds in a show of impunity.”

He added that, “those who dared to challenge such brazen acts of cruelty met instant death or escaped by the whiskers from the hands of the untouchable herders.”

According to him, “Both the herdsmen and their cattle have become sacred cows in Southern Kaduna.

“In fact, it is on social media now that the Fulani militia have sent out warning, that some communities in southern Kaduna should not bother going to farm in the coming rainy season, as doing so will only amount to producing fodder for their cattle.”

Maisamari said, no fewer than 245 Southern Kaduna communities have been sacked by armed herdsmen in collaboration with terrorists.

He lamented that with a few weeks to the end of the current administration, the attacks had been on the increase.

“And the fact that the same government wants to succeed itself at both the state and federal levels, we have great doubts if the genocide, kidnapping, displacement and occupation will abate.

“On these notes we are seriously concerned about the curious silence of Amnesty International (AI) on the pogrom going on Southern Kaduna.

“We are also very sad about the silence of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), the Africa Union (AU), the Commonwealth of Nations and the United Nations (UN) over the unrelenting pogrom in Southern Kaduna.

“SOKAPU is calling on these continental and global bodies to send independent investigation teams to Southern Kaduna to debunk or confirm our claims of ethnic cleansing here.

“Before then, we advocate for a UN or AU Peace Enforcement Operations Base in Southern Kaduna.

“This will practicality demonstrate that the world is interested in our collective survival as minority ethnic groups.

“It must not abandon us to be hounded by well-funded and well-armed herdsmen who are being encouraged and protected by their powerful kinsmen and collaborators in and outside Nigeria”, the group said.