The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has openly condemned and lamented over the attack on the house of a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Alhaji Usman Abubakar who is popularly known as Young Alhaji in Otukpo.
The Governor had also described the torching of Young Alhaji’s house by yet-to-be-identified persons as unacceptable, barbaric and anti-democracy.
Read Also: Over 5,000 Benue Farmers Lost To Herdsmen’s Attacks – Ortom
He tasks security operatives to fish out perpetrators of the act and warns those causing unnecessary tension on account of political differences to desist or be prepared to face the long arm of the law.
Governor Ortom sympathizes with Alhaji Abubakar and urges him not to be discouraged by the unfortunate incident.
In another report, the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has claimed that between 2017 and this year, no fewer than 5,000 farmers including women and children have been murdered by armed herdsmen in the state.
The governor also claimed that the state, which prides itself as food basket of Nigeria is losing the status because of the attacks.
He said very soon, Nigerians will start feeling the pains of keeping over 1.5 million farmers at the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps.
The governor who made this known yesterday during an interview on TVC programme Journalists Hangout which was monitored by Africa Today News, New York also decried that the continued attacks on the farming population in the State has stalled agriculture growth and development.
According to him, ‘over 80 percent population in the camps are peasant farmers who contribute immensely to the growth of the State economy, saying their continue staying in the camps has pose a threat to food security in the country even as he disclosed that those who attempt to go back during farming season to farm are being killed in the process.’