Again the Benue State Governor Mr Samuel Ortom, has berated
the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba
Shehu, over his comments that he (Ortom) should not have spoken against the imposition
of Ruga settlements in his state because, according to the Presidential
spokesman, the governor was not included in the Ruga settlement plan.
The governor, who reacted on Tuesday via his media aide, Terver
Akase, said the statement was as contradictory as it was false, misleading and
lacking honour, adding that the government viewed Shehu's explanation with
disbelief.
He said the federal government, through its Ministry of Agriculture
wrote to the Benue State Government informing it about the decision to
establish Ruga settlements in the three senatorial zones of the state "Our
Ministry of Agriculture which received the correspondence responded that Benue
has no land for the Ruga settlements and that the state only has land for
ranches as stipulated by the state's Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches
Establishment Law 2017."
According to the governor, the Benue State Government
subsequently made public its rejection of the Ruga model of animal husbandry
and reminded those pushing for the illegal settlement patterns about provisions
of the country's Constitution and the Land Use Act.
He said they were shocked to hear Shehu claim that Governor
Ortom was not included in the Ruga project and therefore had no right to
comment on it.
"If the senior special assistant to the president
claims that Benue was not included in the Ruga arrangement, why did the federal
government send contractors to mount the project's signposts in parts of the
state? If Benue was not included in the Ruga settlements, why did the Federal
government say it has gazetted lands in the 36 states for the project? and it
is now clear that mallam Garba Shehu is misleading the presidency and telling
lies about a sensitive matter that affects the entire country.
He said the state will not join Shehu in his comfort zone -
where he makes unpresidential statements and vilifies anyone with a contrary opinion.
"His repeated unprovoked attacks on the person and
office of the Benue state governor only expose his temperament and those of
others in the same league as persons who are intolerant of alternative views on
issues.
Meanwhile, the Fulani
Nationality in Benue State have challenged the state governor to immediately
make lands available for indigenous
Fulani herdsmen in the state to ranch their cows since the people have rejected
the proposed establishment of ruga settlement.
The spokesman for the fulani nationality in the state,
Alhaji Gololo stated this to reporters in Makurdi
He lamented that Governor Ortom had used certain instrument
of government to drive away fulani indigenes from the state even when the
Nigeria constitution guaranteed their indigene ship.
"The enactment of the anti open grazing law had driven
fulani away from Benue State even myself I was chased out of the state because
they sent people after me to kill me because of my stance against the law. Now
if I come to Benue, I used to hide myself and see people whom I needed to seen.
"By law, you are supposed to settled for where you
were born and lived. We want federal government to know that Benue State
Government had drove away all fulani people from the state. It is clear that
the governor do not want fulanis in the state because he had made up his mind
and taken position against them.
"Ordinarily by
right and constitutional provision, we are indigenes of the state and have
nowhere to go again. This is because our parents and even we too, were
born and brought up Benue and Benue remained our home.
"Now that our brothers in Tiv nation said that they don't want Ruga Settlement, we have agreed with them, but government should
show us the land they earmarked for ranches.
"We should be treated as son of the soil. We have Tiv
people in Taraba, in Niger, Plateau etc, who settled and lived there and can't return back to Benue again.
"Therefore, Benue State is our own state and if
the people are rejecting Ruga
settlement, government should show us the ranches or land they have allocated to herdsmen in the
state to ranch their cattles", he said.
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