WHAT is your assessment of the security situation in
the state?
We’ve done tremendous improvement and successes.
When we came in, we met insecurity in the state. On May
29 when I took over; there were killings, kidnappings,
assassinations, robbery and various sorts of crimes. A
large percentage of the youths were into violent
activities and thuggery. I foresaw it as a seasoned
politician and as someone who is experienced about
governance from the local government level through the
state and federal levels. From the day of my
inauguration, I directed and banned all thuggery
activities in Benue State. Now you don’t see thugs
around here.
In those days, it was a usual practice. When you were
doing any construction work; private or public; you
found youths going around demanding some settlement.
It no longer happens here in Benue State. And because
the past administration bought arms and gave them to
these youths to prosecute the election; and during the
election, it was clear. I was attacked during my
campaigns; my offices were destroyed.
Efforts of a new administration: When I came in, I saw
that some of those youths were innocent and that we
needed to help them. With a brand new administration,
there was need to find a way of helping them and
separating those ones who were not hardened from the
hardened ones. So, God gave me wisdom and right from
the day of my inauguration, I made a pronouncement
that I was going to grant amnesty to criminals in the
society and to separate the hardened ones from the
non-hardened ones. I also separated the amnesty and
said one side will be the carrot approach; this one will
require people to bring their arms and I will even placate
them and maybe pay some kind of compensation for the
arms that they are bringing and also, integrate them into
the society; those who choose to be of good conduct.
The other one will be the stick approach; we will go
after those who will refuse to surrender, forcibly, and
arrest them and sanction them according to the law.
Amnesty programme: We started with the amnesty
programme using the carrot approach and it gave us a
lot of success. More than 600 different rifles were
recovered; thousands of ammunition were recovered and
explosives were also recovered and more than 900 of
these youths came forth and embraced the amnesty
programme. We are in the process of finding how we can
integrate them into the society by identifying what trade
or vocation we can give to them. Those of them who
were already experienced in one vocation or the other,
we were ready to finance and sponsor them.
That has been the process. Some donors came;
PRESCOM from Abuja came and we are collaborating
together. That is the process we are in now. But after
some time, we noticed that there was an upsurge of
criminality going on. Apparently, those who had these
weapons but did not surrender waited to see what
government would do and so they came up. And also
there were also some political undertone to try to make
the state ungovernable.
Applying the stick approach: We met as a Security
Council and decided to apply the stick approach. So, we
are going after all criminals in the society today.
Wherever they are hiding, we are going to fish them out
and sanction them according to the law.
And some of these people that came forward to embrace
this amnesty, like one notorious gang leader and
criminal who was responsible for cattle rustling in his
part of the state; who was responsible for kidnappings
and killings, and assassinations and all sorts of
criminality in the society; recruiting a lot of young men
through the resources that he had. This is somebody
that we considered very key in the amnesty programme
because when he was surrendering, he alone brought
over 87 rifles and several explosives that he surrendered
and deceived us, made us to believe that he was
sincere.
Killing of Governor’s Special Assistant: We discovered
him and because my senior special assistant on special
security discovered that he was back into criminality.
They went after him and assassinated him. He was
accused, because when my special assistant on special
security was dying, he said that it was Gana because he
discovered him. This is somebody, a former police
officer that was going round the state when issues of
kidnappings were rampant; he went around and was able
to rescue 13 different kidnap victims without a ransom.
I told the man when he came to me and was trying to
deny that he was not responsible, to go to the police
when they invite him and exonerate himself. Do you
know that when he was invited, instead of going to the
police, he chose to be above the law and decided that
he will not go and has gone back to his old ways?
The State Security Council met and declared him wanted
but he never came forth. We went to search for him and
he ran away. We discovered eight sacks of weeds, his
weed farm and other weapons and explosives that were
recovered from him. We also discovered a training
school for criminals because we were able to remove
some body building equipment in his school. He was
using it as a shield; he was training criminals in the
school at Gbishe in Katsina-Ala Local Government.
Training school
And since then, he has been on the run. As I talk to you
now, the Security Council has placed a five million naira
reward for information on him and anybody that leads us
to arrest him is going to get that support.
Synergizing for security of lives and properties
What we have done is that the entire Security Council –
the army, the civil defence, the police, the air force, all
of us are working together to ensure that we bring back
security to our people. As I talk to you, even the army
has observed their rules of engagement. There has not
been any killing or embarrassment of civilians. The
people in Gbishe where he resides are very happy with
us and we are going after him. We have arrested a
number of his followers; over 70 of them are in
detention, some have already been taken to court and
are in prison. We have recovered several weapons; in
fact, it’s on a daily basis and I must commend my
security team that I have in Benue State; I’m proud of
them.
Today in Benue State; maybe from where you were
coming you wouldn’t have had the opportunity of being
here with me; one criminal or the other would have
stopped you on the way. They were taking over the state
and I said no. The primary responsibility of government
is to provide security for lives and property and I, as a
child of God that was made Governor against all odds,
cannot surrender the state to criminals.
Changing Benue into an industrial hub: Other people
may not have the opportunity that I have in government
but I’m governing over them and I must provide security
for them. My state is a civil service state and I intend to
change the story into an industrial hub especially in the
agricultural value chain and all these cannot thrive. I
want to see my people into commercial and trading
activities; I want to see my people into micro, small and
medium scale enterprises; I want to see my people
attracting investors to come in because we have
abundant raw materials. We have comparative
advantages in several sectors – in agriculture, in solid
minerals, even in culture and tourism.
Attracting investors
All these cannot thrive when there is insecurity. So what
we are doing specifically is to ensure that we have a
stable state where people are able, free to come in and
invest. And, of course, Benue State remains the gateway
to the North and to the South. We want to make the
place very comfortable for anyone that is coming in here
and that is why we meet regularly and by the grace of
God, we shall win this fight.
Fighting cultism also: We have even extended it to cult
activities of especially campus boys. We have told them
very clearly that there is no more room for any cultist to
live in Benue State and be molesting and harassing
people anyhow. There is no way. We are out there. We
are constituting a vigilante team that will keep vigil over
the state. The 276 council wards that we have in Benue
State will be manned by this vigilante team supporting
the law enforcement agencies to ensure that there are no
leakages. So, I want to say that we have relative peace
as I speak to you and some of those youths that rejected
the amnesty have started sending in messages that look,
we want to surrender including Gana.
Can we talk specifically about the menace of cattle
rearers?
Yes. It’s an unfortunate development, some of us grew
up and we mingled with the Fulani men and cattle
rearers and all that. It is one thing that we can also take
advantage as indigenes of the state and go into. There is
nothing really special about that. Yes, they started it but
we can also participate. Of recent, we have noticed these
crisis about farmers and herdsmen; it is beyond that. It
is beyond herdsmen and farmers. Farmers and herdsmen
from time immemorial, there used to be issues of
encroachment into people’s farmlands and destroying
people’s crops and sometimes when the farmers
confront them, the herdsmen will attack them. But it
went beyond that when criminality set in.
Cattle rustlers are initiated by sometimes herdsmen who
are wild in collaboration with the natives. They go on
rustling cattle and once that is done, the nomads when
they come, they are not going after those cattle, they are
looking at the spot where their cattle were last seen
and then they go after those people. These are things
that we have been trying to mediate and appeal to both
farmers and herdsmen about. Though there are issues of
individuals going after herdsmen and herdsmen going
after the farmers, all these are things that we can resolve
when people accept to live by the rule of law and ensure
that due process is followed. We have been appealing to
them; we have been working with them.
No to grazing, yes to ranching
But for us in Benue State here, we have come out with a
position because of the upsurge of population and the
nature of an average Benue State man or woman who is
a peasant farmer, the land is no longer there for grazing.
But we are willing to accept ranching. The herdsmen can
acquire land and restrict the movement of their cattle
and provide feeds for them whether conventional feeds
or unconventional feeds, they are there in abundance.
And they will be making or bringing opportunities to
other people. For instance, the waste from the farmer
can be sold to the herdsman and the herdsman can sell
the cow to the farmer when he wants to eat meat. During
Christmas, a lot of cows are slaughtered here; big
business goes on there. So when you rear these cattle
and you sell, farmers will buy. This is division of labour
kind of a thing and we appreciate that we must accept a
win-win situation.
People should not be violent about this because we
know that we need one another. The Tiv man needs
meat, the Fulani man needs food; they must eat food.
You cannot eat meat alone to survive. So, it’s a win-win
thing that we have been trying to appeal to people. But I
detest this culture of because your cattle were rustled
here and you come and you attack innocent people and
kill them who know nothing about this. Two wrongs do
not make a right.
The civilized thing to do is to report when there is an
infringement; when there are trespasses on your cattle,
or your farm or whatever, you report and we will go after
these people. At least we have a proactive government
that is in place and is ready to listen and ready to act
immediately if we get such reports. So one thing we’ve
been trying to do is to appeal to people to be calm and
report infringements whether from the herdsmen or from
the farmers.
Bill in the offing: We have sent a bill to the State House
of Assembly and when that bill comes out, it will define
areas of operation and we are going to go to public
hearing on this; the Fulani men can also come, who are
herdsmen; the farmers can also come so that we can
find a place where all of them can meet without crisis. I
am a farmer and I appreciate the challenges that our
farmers have here and I also appreciate the fact that the
Fulani man too has the right to live but you must live
and let live.
Controling the cattle
It shouldn’t be at the detriment of farmers here. At least
for us here, the land is no longer there; we are called
the Food Basket of the Nation. Go to the villages, there
is no place you can see two hectares of land that are
virgin. So, it’s difficult for herdsmen to control their
cattle without trespassing into somebody’s farm and I
have been saying that we as Governors need to come
together with the Federal Government to find how we
can support these farmers. But let us begin to think
about what we can do that is globally practiced, that is
accepted; just like we borrowed democracy, the
presidential system of government from America. Why
can’t we borrow the issue of raising or rearing cattle
from America? They do theirs in ranching. Our people
here can do it; it’s just the political will and the support
that is needed. I think we can do that. I am a farmer of
livestock and I have cattle too but I keep them in my
ranch and so there are no issues of my cattle went there
and destroyed somebody’s farm and so on.
We started like that but there were several reports and
we had to restrict it to where we are today. So others
can do it and I look forward that a day will come when
all of us will converge and find a lasting solution to this.
Source : Vanguard
the state?
We’ve done tremendous improvement and successes.
When we came in, we met insecurity in the state. On May
29 when I took over; there were killings, kidnappings,
assassinations, robbery and various sorts of crimes. A
large percentage of the youths were into violent
activities and thuggery. I foresaw it as a seasoned
politician and as someone who is experienced about
governance from the local government level through the
state and federal levels. From the day of my
inauguration, I directed and banned all thuggery
activities in Benue State. Now you don’t see thugs
around here.
In those days, it was a usual practice. When you were
doing any construction work; private or public; you
found youths going around demanding some settlement.
It no longer happens here in Benue State. And because
the past administration bought arms and gave them to
these youths to prosecute the election; and during the
election, it was clear. I was attacked during my
campaigns; my offices were destroyed.
Efforts of a new administration: When I came in, I saw
that some of those youths were innocent and that we
needed to help them. With a brand new administration,
there was need to find a way of helping them and
separating those ones who were not hardened from the
hardened ones. So, God gave me wisdom and right from
the day of my inauguration, I made a pronouncement
that I was going to grant amnesty to criminals in the
society and to separate the hardened ones from the
non-hardened ones. I also separated the amnesty and
said one side will be the carrot approach; this one will
require people to bring their arms and I will even placate
them and maybe pay some kind of compensation for the
arms that they are bringing and also, integrate them into
the society; those who choose to be of good conduct.
The other one will be the stick approach; we will go
after those who will refuse to surrender, forcibly, and
arrest them and sanction them according to the law.
Amnesty programme: We started with the amnesty
programme using the carrot approach and it gave us a
lot of success. More than 600 different rifles were
recovered; thousands of ammunition were recovered and
explosives were also recovered and more than 900 of
these youths came forth and embraced the amnesty
programme. We are in the process of finding how we can
integrate them into the society by identifying what trade
or vocation we can give to them. Those of them who
were already experienced in one vocation or the other,
we were ready to finance and sponsor them.
That has been the process. Some donors came;
PRESCOM from Abuja came and we are collaborating
together. That is the process we are in now. But after
some time, we noticed that there was an upsurge of
criminality going on. Apparently, those who had these
weapons but did not surrender waited to see what
government would do and so they came up. And also
there were also some political undertone to try to make
the state ungovernable.
Applying the stick approach: We met as a Security
Council and decided to apply the stick approach. So, we
are going after all criminals in the society today.
Wherever they are hiding, we are going to fish them out
and sanction them according to the law.
And some of these people that came forward to embrace
this amnesty, like one notorious gang leader and
criminal who was responsible for cattle rustling in his
part of the state; who was responsible for kidnappings
and killings, and assassinations and all sorts of
criminality in the society; recruiting a lot of young men
through the resources that he had. This is somebody
that we considered very key in the amnesty programme
because when he was surrendering, he alone brought
over 87 rifles and several explosives that he surrendered
and deceived us, made us to believe that he was
sincere.
Killing of Governor’s Special Assistant: We discovered
him and because my senior special assistant on special
security discovered that he was back into criminality.
They went after him and assassinated him. He was
accused, because when my special assistant on special
security was dying, he said that it was Gana because he
discovered him. This is somebody, a former police
officer that was going round the state when issues of
kidnappings were rampant; he went around and was able
to rescue 13 different kidnap victims without a ransom.
I told the man when he came to me and was trying to
deny that he was not responsible, to go to the police
when they invite him and exonerate himself. Do you
know that when he was invited, instead of going to the
police, he chose to be above the law and decided that
he will not go and has gone back to his old ways?
The State Security Council met and declared him wanted
but he never came forth. We went to search for him and
he ran away. We discovered eight sacks of weeds, his
weed farm and other weapons and explosives that were
recovered from him. We also discovered a training
school for criminals because we were able to remove
some body building equipment in his school. He was
using it as a shield; he was training criminals in the
school at Gbishe in Katsina-Ala Local Government.
Training school
And since then, he has been on the run. As I talk to you
now, the Security Council has placed a five million naira
reward for information on him and anybody that leads us
to arrest him is going to get that support.
Synergizing for security of lives and properties
What we have done is that the entire Security Council –
the army, the civil defence, the police, the air force, all
of us are working together to ensure that we bring back
security to our people. As I talk to you, even the army
has observed their rules of engagement. There has not
been any killing or embarrassment of civilians. The
people in Gbishe where he resides are very happy with
us and we are going after him. We have arrested a
number of his followers; over 70 of them are in
detention, some have already been taken to court and
are in prison. We have recovered several weapons; in
fact, it’s on a daily basis and I must commend my
security team that I have in Benue State; I’m proud of
them.
Today in Benue State; maybe from where you were
coming you wouldn’t have had the opportunity of being
here with me; one criminal or the other would have
stopped you on the way. They were taking over the state
and I said no. The primary responsibility of government
is to provide security for lives and property and I, as a
child of God that was made Governor against all odds,
cannot surrender the state to criminals.
Changing Benue into an industrial hub: Other people
may not have the opportunity that I have in government
but I’m governing over them and I must provide security
for them. My state is a civil service state and I intend to
change the story into an industrial hub especially in the
agricultural value chain and all these cannot thrive. I
want to see my people into commercial and trading
activities; I want to see my people into micro, small and
medium scale enterprises; I want to see my people
attracting investors to come in because we have
abundant raw materials. We have comparative
advantages in several sectors – in agriculture, in solid
minerals, even in culture and tourism.
Attracting investors
All these cannot thrive when there is insecurity. So what
we are doing specifically is to ensure that we have a
stable state where people are able, free to come in and
invest. And, of course, Benue State remains the gateway
to the North and to the South. We want to make the
place very comfortable for anyone that is coming in here
and that is why we meet regularly and by the grace of
God, we shall win this fight.
Fighting cultism also: We have even extended it to cult
activities of especially campus boys. We have told them
very clearly that there is no more room for any cultist to
live in Benue State and be molesting and harassing
people anyhow. There is no way. We are out there. We
are constituting a vigilante team that will keep vigil over
the state. The 276 council wards that we have in Benue
State will be manned by this vigilante team supporting
the law enforcement agencies to ensure that there are no
leakages. So, I want to say that we have relative peace
as I speak to you and some of those youths that rejected
the amnesty have started sending in messages that look,
we want to surrender including Gana.
Can we talk specifically about the menace of cattle
rearers?
Yes. It’s an unfortunate development, some of us grew
up and we mingled with the Fulani men and cattle
rearers and all that. It is one thing that we can also take
advantage as indigenes of the state and go into. There is
nothing really special about that. Yes, they started it but
we can also participate. Of recent, we have noticed these
crisis about farmers and herdsmen; it is beyond that. It
is beyond herdsmen and farmers. Farmers and herdsmen
from time immemorial, there used to be issues of
encroachment into people’s farmlands and destroying
people’s crops and sometimes when the farmers
confront them, the herdsmen will attack them. But it
went beyond that when criminality set in.
Cattle rustlers are initiated by sometimes herdsmen who
are wild in collaboration with the natives. They go on
rustling cattle and once that is done, the nomads when
they come, they are not going after those cattle, they are
looking at the spot where their cattle were last seen
and then they go after those people. These are things
that we have been trying to mediate and appeal to both
farmers and herdsmen about. Though there are issues of
individuals going after herdsmen and herdsmen going
after the farmers, all these are things that we can resolve
when people accept to live by the rule of law and ensure
that due process is followed. We have been appealing to
them; we have been working with them.
No to grazing, yes to ranching
But for us in Benue State here, we have come out with a
position because of the upsurge of population and the
nature of an average Benue State man or woman who is
a peasant farmer, the land is no longer there for grazing.
But we are willing to accept ranching. The herdsmen can
acquire land and restrict the movement of their cattle
and provide feeds for them whether conventional feeds
or unconventional feeds, they are there in abundance.
And they will be making or bringing opportunities to
other people. For instance, the waste from the farmer
can be sold to the herdsman and the herdsman can sell
the cow to the farmer when he wants to eat meat. During
Christmas, a lot of cows are slaughtered here; big
business goes on there. So when you rear these cattle
and you sell, farmers will buy. This is division of labour
kind of a thing and we appreciate that we must accept a
win-win situation.
People should not be violent about this because we
know that we need one another. The Tiv man needs
meat, the Fulani man needs food; they must eat food.
You cannot eat meat alone to survive. So, it’s a win-win
thing that we have been trying to appeal to people. But I
detest this culture of because your cattle were rustled
here and you come and you attack innocent people and
kill them who know nothing about this. Two wrongs do
not make a right.
The civilized thing to do is to report when there is an
infringement; when there are trespasses on your cattle,
or your farm or whatever, you report and we will go after
these people. At least we have a proactive government
that is in place and is ready to listen and ready to act
immediately if we get such reports. So one thing we’ve
been trying to do is to appeal to people to be calm and
report infringements whether from the herdsmen or from
the farmers.
Bill in the offing: We have sent a bill to the State House
of Assembly and when that bill comes out, it will define
areas of operation and we are going to go to public
hearing on this; the Fulani men can also come, who are
herdsmen; the farmers can also come so that we can
find a place where all of them can meet without crisis. I
am a farmer and I appreciate the challenges that our
farmers have here and I also appreciate the fact that the
Fulani man too has the right to live but you must live
and let live.
Controling the cattle
It shouldn’t be at the detriment of farmers here. At least
for us here, the land is no longer there; we are called
the Food Basket of the Nation. Go to the villages, there
is no place you can see two hectares of land that are
virgin. So, it’s difficult for herdsmen to control their
cattle without trespassing into somebody’s farm and I
have been saying that we as Governors need to come
together with the Federal Government to find how we
can support these farmers. But let us begin to think
about what we can do that is globally practiced, that is
accepted; just like we borrowed democracy, the
presidential system of government from America. Why
can’t we borrow the issue of raising or rearing cattle
from America? They do theirs in ranching. Our people
here can do it; it’s just the political will and the support
that is needed. I think we can do that. I am a farmer of
livestock and I have cattle too but I keep them in my
ranch and so there are no issues of my cattle went there
and destroyed somebody’s farm and so on.
We started like that but there were several reports and
we had to restrict it to where we are today. So others
can do it and I look forward that a day will come when
all of us will converge and find a lasting solution to this.
Source : Vanguard
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