The Vice-President, Yemi Osinbajo, yesterday, denied receiving any letter from Benue State governor, Samuel
Ortom, warning him of attacks planned by herdsmen.
Vice President, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, and Benue State governor, Samuel
Ortom His statement came on a day President Muhammadu Buhari and the
Benue governor disagreed on the need for cattle colony to be created for
herdsmen in states of the federation. While the President asked the
governor and other leaders in the state to accommodate herdsmen in the
state, Governor Ortom said Benue State had no land to give for cattle
colony.
In a statement by his spokesman, Mr. Laolu Akande, Osinbajo expressed
shock over the governor’s claims, which he described as a “terrible
falsehood.” Ortom had said he alerted President Muhammadu Buhari,
Osinbajo, the Inspector-General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, of the planned
attacks by herdsmen but that they allegedly ignored it.
Reacting to the allegation, Osinbajo said neither him nor the other
parties the governor claimed to have alerted got any letters on the
situation. What Ortom told me — Osinbajo Akande explained that Ortom
wrote the vice president a letter dated June 7, 2017, protesting the
opposition and resistance of Miyetti Allah to the anti-grazing law,
adding that he had also received a letter from the leadership of Miyetti
Allah on their reservations about the law.
He said: “It will be a terrible falsehood to suggest that the VP was
ever informed by the governor or anyone else of the imminence of the
killing of citizens of our country in those or any other local
governments in Benue State.
“Governor Ortom wrote to the Vice President, then Acting President,
on June 7, 2017, protesting a newspaper publication where the leadership
of Miyetti Allah was reported to have stated that it was opposed to the
Open Grazing Prohibition law of the state and that they would mobilize
to resist the law.
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