Based on the comments attributed to the Bauchi State Governor, Mr Bala Mohammed, that herdsmen should be allowed to carry an AK-47 rifle to defend themselves, the Benue State Governor, Mr Samuel Ortom, has described his colleague as a terrorist.
Mr Ortom, while addressing newsmen on Monday in Makurdi, Benue State capital, said Governor Mohammed must be a terrorist for supporting the use of illegal arms by foreign herdsmen.
“I am beginning to think that my brother, the Governor of Bauchi State is part of the terrorist Fulani organisation that is terrorising this country.
“Why do I say this? This is the same governor who took the oath of office to protect the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. This constitution does not leave room for allowing foreign herdsmen to come in without valid papers.
“This is a man who says that a Fulani man is a global man and can come in from anywhere and enter Nigeria. It is quite disappointing to hear a governor who took the oath of office …maybe he should go back and check the oath of office he took to check maybe the constitution gives room for foreign terrorist Fulani herdsmen to come into Nigeria,” Mr Ortom said.
He called on Governor Mohammed to render an unreserved apology and learn from the provisions of the constitution that, land both territorial, forest, and aquatic, are vested on the Governor of a state who holds them in trust, instead of indulging in inciting Fulani herdsmen against innocent Nigerians.
Last Friday, Governor Bala Mohammed defended his comment about armed herders, explaining that he used AK-47 was a figure of speech for protection.
“It is a figure of speech to show you the despondence, the desperation and frustration and the agony that this particular person is exposed to by his own people, by his own tribe and by other tribes who have all seen him as a criminal and therefore, he has the inalienable right to protect himself,” the Governor said during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily.
