Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom
***Call on Gov. Ortom to repeal his anti-grazing law
By YUSUFU IDEGU, Jos-
A fulani socio-cultural organisation known as Jonde Jam Fulani Youths Association of Nigeria (JAFYAN) has alleged that the Fulani cattle breeders has became endangered specie and continuously under siege in Benue state.
The National President of JAFYAN, Alhaji Saidu Maikano, who disclosed this in a statement in Jos, the Plateau State’s capital, said the Fulanis and their cows are been hunted inside and outside Benue state by an armed militia group sponsored by the state governor, Gov Ortom.
“We discovered of recent that a task force set by the Benue State Governor, Ortom have taken interest in extorting Fulani herders by forcing them to pay in millions of naira on a mere allegation of having encroached on the territory of Benue state. This is to a level that the task force can go to the bush to hunt for Fulani herders in neighboring states just to extort money from them under the guise of enforcing anti-open grazing law”.
“The Benue state government has been forcing Fulani to pay N2,000.00 on each cow arrested under anti-grazing law, so for a Fulani arrested with 2,000 cows, you have to cough out N2 million within 7 days after which your cows will be auctioned at very cheap price”. The statement said.
Alhaji Maikano further alleged that Governor Ortom has, in addition to his militia group, drafted more government security agencies in hunting for Fulani and extorting them.
According to him: “Governor Ortom has shown his hatred for Fulani ethnic group in several ways by stigmatising them in negative light there by painting them black in the eyes of other ethnic groups in the country”.
“Ortom particularly enacted anti-grazing laws particularly to drive Fulani cattle breeders out of his state in flagrant abuse of the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. He set up a special task force to go after Fulani heders including those headers that are just passing through Benue state to another destination outside the state”.
“The task force now go to the boundary at Nasarawa state to arrest Fulani heders, forced them into Benue state territory so as to criminalise them using the anti-open grazing law even when it is obvious there is no single Fulani herder in Benue state”.
“We considered the anti-open grazing law in Benue state as an abuse of human rights because it touches on the freedom of the Fulani ethnic extraction”.
“From these open hatred for the Fulani herders, Ortom has, rather than help in uniting ethnic nationalities in his state has painted the Fulani black and he has been hanging them”.
“It is on record that Fulani cattle breeders never had any problem with farmers in Benue state under previous administration in the state. We lived peacefully under Goerge Akume and Gabriel Suswam leadership, why then are we been chased away by Governor Ortom”.
“The fact that Fulani lived peacefully under previous administration is a prove that Gov Ortom hates Fulani. It also shows that gov Ortom lack the capacity to manage ethnic nationalities in Benue state, he is not fit to be a governor”
The Fulani group therefore called on the Federal Government to declare a state of emergency in Benue state, since the Governor has failed to unite ethnic nationalities in the state.
