Sen Ali Ndume, (3rd left, Philip Nyam, Chair, Correspondents Chapel, and an FRSC official and others during the event

 Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state  Thursday lamented that the State is suffering massive humanitarian and economic crises provoked  by the most serious widespread killings, maiming, massive destruction and displacement of whole communities from their ancestral lands.

" Between 2009 and 2014, more than 50 deadly attacks across more than half of the 23 Local Government Areas in the State had been recorded with hundreds of deaths and destruction of property estimated at more than N90 billion",  Ortom  revealed 

 in a paper he presented to members of the Correspondents Chapel, NUJ, FCT Council, Abuja during its 2021 Press Week

 The governor who featured as the Guest Speaker in the paper titled: Insecurity in Nigeria: Restoring Peace, Unity and Progress affirmed that " Homes, schools, churches, health centres, security posts, roads, bridges, farms and other sources of livelihood have been destroyed. Over 180,000 of our people were registered in eight officially designated Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in 2018; while over 500,000 displaced people have been living with relatives, in host communities and in uncompleted buildings and public spaces across several Local Government Areas in Benue State"

He explained that the near state of anarchy that prevailed in the  State instigated the proposal and enactment of  the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill into law on 4th May, 2017.  

"My people who are predominantly farmers not only requested for a policy hoping that it would not only end hostilities and attacks o them by nomadic herdsmen, but would also allow both parties to peacefully"

The Benue chief executive noted regretfully, that  the coming of the Ranching Law rather than usher in peace, worsened the insecurity challenge in Benue as those opposed to it threatened that "more blood would flow in Benue if the Ranching Law was not rescinded.” 

Among groups the governor listed as opposed to the ranching law and instigating violence in Benue includes MiyettiAllah Kautal Hore led by its National President Alhaji Abdullahi Bello Badejo; the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN), and the Fulani Nationality Movement, FUNAM, which recently made the  outrageous declarations of carrying on a 200-year old Jihad to conquer and exclusively occupy Nigeria. 

"Benue people have suffered genocidal and repeated acts of terrorism from known attackers – armed Fulani herdsmen! Our people know those who have been attacking and killing them in their sleep and on their farms and ancestral lands", Ortom lamented

He further expressed concerns that the Federal Government’s actions and inactions, including the widely discussed concern over inequalities in key appoitments  reinforces the perception that the Administration is not fair and just to all Nigerians.

" It is no longer news that everyone is alarmed that the security of lives and property of Nigerians are no longer guaranteed under the present government as a result of leadership incompetence and mismanagement of the nation’s affairs", he asserted

Gov Ortom dismissed as mere theory the1999  Constitutional revognition of Governors  as the Chief Security Officers of our states.   "Our hands are tied behind our backs as the entire coercive authority in the country is monopolized by the Federal Government that has skewed the security architecture along religious and ethnic lines", he maintained

 The Benue chief executive proposed to stakeholders and all Nigerians to take advantage of the ongoing Constitution Amendment process to decentralize the security architecture of Nigeria and involve States and Local Governments.