Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has called the Federal Government to close Nigeria’s borders on foreign herdsmen to prevent them from trooping into the country to cause mayhem.
Governor Ortom made the call on Monday when he, accompanied by his wife, Mrs. Eunice Ortom, visited Mrs. Wanhena Cheku at the Federal Medical Centre, FMC, Makurdi, whose left hand was amputated by suspected herdsmen on her farm, at Guma Local Government Area, LGA, of the state last week.
Ortom, who implored the federal government to deploy resources; human and material, to man the country’s borders insisted that foreign herdsmen should not be tolerated by any country, saying it is wrong for them to freely find their way into Nigeria, cause mayhem and go back to their countries.
Speaking to newsmen at the FMC Apir, after the visit, Ortom disclosed that security men are trailing the herdsmen who were responsible for the evil act on Mrs Cheku.
He noted that Benue state is relatively peaceful, considering what the state went through in 2018 saying “that is why we must enforce the law on ranching in Benue state because these are wild people and the only way you can separate the good ones from the bad ones is when we have stock of all herdsmen in Benue state.
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“If what you are seeing here, like this attack on this innocent woman was done in a ranch, security men can enclose on owners of such a ranch.
“Now, we can’t find those people, maybe they are from Niger. Therefore, I want to advise the Federal Government to close the borders on herdsmen who are foreigners. It is wrong to allow herdsmen who are from Mali, Niger, Chad to take over Nigeria, find their way into Nigeria and commit atrocities and go back to their countries.
“No country in the world will accept this kind of people. You can imagine the pain these people have thrown this innocent woman into.
This is a known case, but we’ve always spoken about missing people and if she had died in that jungle, nobody may have been talking about her today, nobody would’ve known.”
The Govenor lamented further that following attacks on Benue farmers, majority of the people have not gone back to their various villages saying those who attempted to go back were being attacked.
“But I think that the lessons that Nigerians and Benue people should learn is that they should put hands together to ensure we prohibit open grazing, so that together we can live like a people. But, we will not accept people from foreign land to occupy and takeover our land,” he stressed.
Ortom however said there will be meeting of Security Council to encourage security personnel to beef up security in all the places where people are going back.
“They cannot continue to remain in these camp forever. It is not a standard camp that people will want to remain there forever.
“And the best thing is for our people to stay in their homes and support our security agencies to ensure we do away with these terrorists; mercenaries that come to steal, kill, and to destroy and for me this is the work of the devil and we will not allow it.”