Nigerian Concord Newspaper
Governor of Benue state, Chief Samuel Ortom, has accused the federal government under President Muhammadu Buhari of giving undue protection and huge funding to fulani herdsmen that have been killing thousands of innocent people across the country.
Governor Samuel Ortom said this during an interview, adding that he had got a security report that the federal government uses to warn security agencies not to arrest, arraign or move against the fulani killers.
According to the governor, giving protection and funding to fulani herdsmen is a strong reason the killers of innocent Nigerians cannot be brought to book despite thier violent attacks on agrarian communities across Nigeria.
The governor pressed further that the federal government deliberately refers to fulani herdsmen as bandits even though they are members of the deadly Miyetti Allah organization.
His words: “Despite that these Miyetti Allah people do claim responsibility for attacks on innocent Nigerians, the federal still gives them huge amount of money and government protection to aide their deadly operations.
“I have spoken to some security men who told me the Federal Government gave them directive that they do not have to move against these Fulani men. That is why I keep saying that the Federal Government’s action and inaction clearly show that they are complicit in the criminality that is going on in Nigeria. They call them bandit because they do not want people to call them Fulani herdsmen.
“Remember what the Sultan of Sokoto said some time ago: anywhere you arrest ten bandits, most of them are Fulanis. That is a Fulani man himself, and that is why when I am talking, I try to differentiate it by saying that those people who are coming against us here because we have lived with Fulani before.
“These are from Mali, Niger, Senegal, and other parts of the world who had chosen to relocate here and take over. We have not sent any Fulani man away from Benue State. Some are still here, and some are even in my government.
“These people called Miyetti Allah have no job other than collecting huge sums of money from the government. The Federal Government is protecting them, which is why they have been talking in the manner they do because even when they do, nothing will happen to them. Even when we do, nothing has taken place. Nobody has called them to question why you are doing this and taking responsibility for attacks.”