Gov Ortom Using His Executive Powers To Oppress Fulani In Benue State – Miyetti Allah

*Says Fulani were not behind assassination attempt on the governor
*Says Fulanis have spent N87m fine in the last 3 months for open grazing

Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, a Fulani socio-cultural organization, has said that Fulanis were never behind the alleged assassination attempt on the governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom.

The President of the group, Alhaji Bello Bodejo, in an interview with the SUN newspaper admitted that they had a meeting at Adamawa as said by the governor Ortom but that the meeting was not to assassinate the governor or destabilize Benue State but rather, to sensitize its members

“Yes! We held meeting in Adamawa few days before that incident, but the meeting focused on how to change the bad image and perception of Fulani people in Nigeria. At the meeting, we encouraged them to do good to people so that our image across Nigeria can be redeemed. As leaders of the association, we seriously sensitized our people on the need to be law abiding irrespective of the provocations. We want to make other tribes and ethnic groups to know our importance and know that we are not troublemakers, even though some bad ones among us are being corrected.

“…The meeting had impressive representation from government, security agencies, traditional institutions and other stakeholders. After our meeting in Yola, Adamawa State, we set an agenda for our people on how to strengthen peace among themselves and other people. But we were surprised that shortly after our meeting on peace building in Adamawa, Benue governor, Ortom, who is presiding over a state with different tribes and ethnic groups alleged that our Adamawa meeting was to discuss how to destabilize his state and possibly assassinate him. That’s untrue and should be disregarded. He’s used to speaking against us, inciting his people against us, so we are surprised.” Badejo said

He explained that governor Ortom has been inciting his people against Fulani simply because the Fulanis took him to court over the anti-open grazing law which he signed in Benue State some years ago. He said the court case is still on and are hopeful that the case will end in their (Fulanis) favour.

He accused the governor of using his executive powers to oppress the Fulanis and has always displayed open hatred towards them.

According to him, Fulanis have been chased out of Benue State and in the last three months the Fulanis have spent about N87 million as fine for open grazing

“Ortom is obviously using his executive powers to oppress, harass and intimidate us. He has repeatedly displayed open hatred for our people and he has vowed not to allow us have peace and do our trade. We should be the ones accusing Ortom of trying to take us off the surface of the earth through his executive actions. He has chased us out of Benue State through the anti-open grazing law. His taskforce officials sieze our cattle arbitrarily, in the name of ban on open grazing. In the last three months, our people have spent N87 million as fine for open grazing and we have the receipts; N5, 000 fine is placed on each cattle arrested for open grazing. Our people are forced to sell cattles to bail the arrested ones. We are custodians of Fulani tradition. Not only that, we are to ensure that our people are living peacefully with their host communities. Our reason for going to court was to demand reversal of the anti-open grazing law in the state.” he said

He further condemned the profiling of Fulani as criminals. According to him, the Fulanis are the most peace loving people in Nigeria

He said, “Since the coming of technological revolution that heralded the emergence of social media, Fulani has been verbally and physically attacked more than any other tribe in Nigeria. But anyone with good historical knowledge will know that Fulani people are the most peaceful people in Nigeria. It’s unfair to say that all Fulani people are criminals. This is not true. There are criminals in all ethnic groups in Nigeria, and that does not mean that all the people of the ethnic group are criminals. The best thing to do is to fish out the bad eggs in the society and punish them in accordance with the law instead of vilifying the entire ethnic group. We need government to do this because they have all it takes to do that.”