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Ortom indicts Miyetti Allah over assassination attack
BY KAZIE UKO
Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has indicted the leadership of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, an umbrella association of Fulani cattle herders in Nigeria, in the assassination attempt on his life on Saturday.
Ortom narrowly escaped death when gunmen described as herders ambushed him at Tyo-Mu community, a distance of less than 20 kilometres from the Benue State capital, Makurdi, while returning from his farm along Gboko road.
Narrating how he escaped being killed by the gunmen who attacked him on his farm, the governor said he ran 1.5 kilometres to escape unhurt.
Ortom, who had never minced words in calling out armed Fulani herdsmen on several horrendous killings in Benue State, told journalists at the Benue Peoples House after the incident, that he was inspecting his farm when armed herders, dressed in black, opened fire on him and his security aides.
He said it took the swift response of his security aides to repel the attack, while he ran a long distance to escape unhurt.
“If not for my security men and God, I would have been dead by now. I ran over 1.5 kilometres to escape while my security men repelled the herdsmen,” he said.
READ: Ortom narrowly escapes death in attack by armed herdsmen
The governor claimed that the attack came few days after the leadership of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore held a meeting in Yola and singled him out as a thorn in their flesh and must be eliminated.
He said he received intelligence to that effect.
Recently, the Bauchi State governor, Alhaji Bala Mohammed, had accused Ortom of being very critical of Fulani herdsmen. Indeed, Mohammed, who stoutly defended the carrying of AK-47 assault riffles by Fulani herders, accused Ortom of embarking on bad media campaign against the Fulani ethnic group.
“The governor that is most wrong is the governor of Benue State, my brother and colleague Governor Samuel Ortom; he started all these,” Mohammed told a gathering of journalists while speaking during the Press Week celebration organised by Correspondents’ Chapel of Nigeria Union Journalists Bauchi State Council, in February 2021.
Mohammed’s accusation led to series of hot exchanges between himself and Ortom, who literally accused his Bauchi State counterpart of terrorism.
“I wouldn’t want to be joining issues with my brother, friend, and colleague Bauchi Governor. But since he has continued to vilify, intimidate and blackmail me, it is said that silence is consent. I am compelled to respond to him.
“I am beginning to think that my brother, the governor of Bauchi State is part of the terrorist Fulani organisation that is terrorising this country…,” Ortom said in reaction to Mohammed’s allegations against him.
READ: Again, Mohammed justifies use of AK-47, take over of forests by Fulani herders
Continuing on the attempt on his life Saturday, Ortom said his life was in the hands of God and no ethnic militia had the power to take it without God’s permission.
He prophesied that as many times as they try, they would continue to fail.
The governor stated that the ranching law of the state will not be repealed for any reason, stressing that no intimidation could force his administration to reverse the decision of Benue people against open grazing.
He said he would send a petition to President Muhammadu Buhari and security chiefs against Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, adding that allowing the leadership of the group to walk freely with security personnel attached to them was not in the best interest of the country.