Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, on Thursday, said the presidency places cows above human lives in Nigeria.
Ortom stated this through his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur, while reacting to an earlier statement issued by the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu.
The president’s media aide had in a statement issued on Wednesday raised steps the Federal Government had taken to address the insecurity problem in Benue State but was frustrated by the outgoing governor who he said was paying lip service to security and using it to drive his politics in the state.
ATTENTION: Click “HERE” to join our WhatsApp group and receive News updates directly on your WhatsApp!
READ ALSO: Middle Belt Forum, Ortom Calls For Suspension of 2023 Census
Shehu said, “Instead, Ortom stubbornly refused to engage with the detailed, holistic approach clearly spelt out by the federal government.
“He arrogantly chose his own destructive path. He blamed the Fulani for every problem that arose. He ignored numerous intelligence reports passed to him for action.
“He rejected police findings into investigations that didn’t meet his egoistical worldview. He politicised every life lost on his watch.
But Ortom likened the statement of the presidency to making animals urinate in the graves of victims of herdsmen invasion of the state, alleging that the president was indeed responsible for the killings in the state.
He said, “The Presidency has shown in this recent public statement that they have placed cows above human lives and made the animals 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 to 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.
Ortom stated that the ongoing pogrom in the state was a designed plot by the Fulani against the people of the state to dispossess them of their lands adding that the atrocities were well documented.
“The perpetrators are also well known to local and international authorities. Through this recent posturing, everyone is now aware that the perpetrators have the backing and sympathy of the Federal Government.
