The Benue State government has alleged that the mass murder in the state perpetrated by the “Fulani militia” has the full backing and endorsement of the President Muhammadu Buhari’s government.

The Chief Press Secretary to Governor Samuel Ortom, Mr Nathaniel Ikyur, stated this in response to a media report in which the President’s media aide, Garba Shehu, accused his boss, Governor Ortom, of politicising security in Benue while his kinsmen bury their dead.

Ikyur, in a press statement made available to newsmen in Makurdi, on Thursday said, “Shehu Garba’s infantile statement on the security situation in Benue State has once again confirmed our position that the killings; 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.

He noted that the presidential spokesman had made futile attempts to twist events and history in Benue State describing it as unfortunate and reprehensible adding that “It shows how much he and others in that league have misled the government and Nigerian people in the last inglorious eight years.

While stating that it is common knowledge that as the Commander-in-Chief, Buhari has empowered and emboldened the Fulani pastoralists in their expansionist agenda including killings, Ikyur said it is equally a known fact that President Buhari has failed woefully in securing Nigeria, and Benue State in particular.

According to him, Governor Samuel Ortom has repeatedly pleaded with the Buhari government to intervene in the incessant invasion of Benue State by Fulani militias lamenting that “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.”

The statement read: “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.

“By Garba Shehu’s latest statement, the presidency has clearly demonstrated that Governor Ortom is right when he consistently accused the APC-led federal government of complicity in the killings orchestrated against Benue people by the Fulani herdsmen as 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 dispossess 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. 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,” he added. (Daily Sun)