Benue State governor, Chief Samuel Ortom, has said no group will be allowed to dictate to the state which path it should follow.
Ortom said this while reacting to a report credited to the national president of Miyetti Allah Kauta Hore, Abdullah Bodejo.
The Miyetti Allah leader had at the weekend warned governors to accept ruga settlement, stressing that any governor who refused to establish cattle colony would not know peace.
Ortom in a statement issued on Sunday by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, said Bodejo’s outburst confirmed that his group was responsible for attacks on farming communities in some parts of the country.
Ortom, who said such utterances from Bodejo were tantamount to direct invitation for anarchy, called for the arrest and prosecution of the Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore leader for persistently making statements capable of stirring crises in the country.
Also, Governor Ortom said the latest outburst by the Miyeitti Allah leader was not only a threat to peace but also a prelude to another round of attacks on Benue.
He recalled that the threat by Bodejo was similar to the one in May 2017, a few days after he signed the ranching law when the group threatened to mobilise their members across West Africa to invade Benue to resist the implementation of the legislation.
ALSO READ: Delta Central, South: Omo-Agege wins, Uduaghan loses at Appeal Court
“They carried out their threat on the eve of 2018 New Year when their armed militia murdered 73 innocent persons, destroyed property worth millions of naira and displaced over 500,000 people in Guma and Logo local government areas.
“As a state, Benue will not take the current threat by Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore lightly. The law of the land is sacrosanct and must be obeyed by everyone. Any individual or group who wants to breed animals in the state should be prepared to ranch them.
“On the ‘order’ given to states by Bodejo to carve out land for grazing reserves/ruga settlements, we advise the group to exclude Benue from their list as there is no land for open grazing in the state.
“Nigerians, irrespective of place of origin and ethnicity, who wish to do lawful business in Benue State are encouraged to do so as the Ortom administration is willing to collaborate with investors in different sectors of the economy,” the statement reads in part.
and then