Benue Attacks: Ortom Lied Against Me – Osinbajo
BY MUSA SIMON REEF, ABUJA – Vice President Yemi Osinbajo on Monday denied having received prior notice on the planned attacks by suspected herdsmen as alleged by Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State.
Speaking through his Senior Special Assistant, Laolu Akande, in a statement released in Abuja, the vice president said he was shocked by a news report ostensibly quoting Ortom as saying that the VP was warned of the “savage and inhumane killings by alleged herdsmen’’ in Logo and Guma local government areas.
According to the statement, “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”.
While acknowledging that Ortom had written on June 7, 2017, Osinbajo noted that the Benue state governor was only protesting a newspaper publication where the leadership of the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association of Nigeria (MACBAN) was reported to have opposed the state’s Open Grazing Prohibition law and the herdsmen’s threat to resist the law.
The statement also added that MACBAN had written to Osinbajo on June 5, 2017 on the same law protesting several sections of the law, adding that Ortom has recommended that the leadership of Miyetti Allah should be arrested for using words such as “wicked, obnoxious and repressive,” to describe the law.
The statement reads in part, “In the said letter written by the Governor, there was no mention of any threat to any specific one of the 23 local governments of Benue State.
“So, the best the law enforcement agencies could do even then was to await information or intelligence of an imminent attack. None came.
“Since then the VP has held several meetings with the Benue Governor, including a visit to the State on September 6, last year at the behest of Mr. President during the tragic floods in the state last year.
“At all such meetings, the Vice President discussed the security situation of the state with the Governor.
“To the best of our knowledge, neither Gov. Ortom nor the Federal Government was aware of the imminence of the cowardly attack on Logo and Guma on the 1st of January.
“Therefore, any suggestion that the President or the Vice President ignored the State Governor’s warning is both absolutely false and certainly misleading”.
