The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has said the statement by the president’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Shehu Garba, ‘is a further confirmation that the killings in Benue by suspected herdsmen have the full endorsement of the President Muhammadu Buhari-led government’.
Ortom was reacting to a statement credited to Shehu on Wednesday, which allegedly mocked the governor.
The governor’s Chief Press Secretary Nath Ikyur, in a statement yesterday, said Garba’s statement shows that the president speaks for herdsmen.
The statement reads,
“Shehu Garba’s infantile statement on the security situation in Benue State has once again confirmed our position that the killings and mass murder by the herdsmen has the full endorsement of the Buhari government. It also goes to confirm that the presidential spokesman does not only speak for Buhari, but for some terrorist groups too.
“Indeed, the presidential spokesman’s futile attempts to twist events and history in Benue is unfortunate and reprehensible. It shows how much he and others in that league have misled the government and Nigerian people in the last inglorious eight years. It is common knowledge that as the Commander-in-Chief, Buhari has empowered and emboldened the pastoralists in their expansionist agenda, including killings. It is equally a known fact that President Buhari has failed woefully in securing Nigeria, and Benue state in particular.
“It is on record that Governor Ortom has repeatedly pleaded with the Buhari government to intervene in the incessant invasion of Benue State. The president sadly chooses to endorse the invasion and merely asks our people to learn to accommodate their neighbours who derive pleasure in killing and dispossessing them of their ancestral lands.
“What the Buhari administration has done to our people, as confirmed by Shehu Garba, is to spit on the graves of our compatriots mowed down needlessly by herdsmen. We shall not forget these atrocities…”