Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo is not happy with Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State for accusing him of doing nothing when he informed him of imminent herdsmen attack on Benue people.

Vice-President Yemi Osinbajo

Osinbajo in a statement by his Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Mr. Laolu Akande, said: “Governor Ortom wrote to the Vice President, then Acting President on 7^th June 2017 protesting a newspaper publication where the leadership of Miyetti Allah was reported to have stated that it was opposed to the Open Grazing Prohibition law of the State and that they would mobilise to resist the law.”

“The Miyetti Allah had written to the Vice President on the 5^th of June 2017 on the same law protesting several sections of the law. The governor went on to say that the leadership of Miyetti Allah should be arrested because they used words such as ‘wicked, obnoxious and repressive,’ to describe the law, and because these were ‘utterances that are capable of undermining the peace…’”

“The Vice President subsequently met with the governor, discussed the matter and the security situation in the state and then ordered law enforcement agencies to be on the alert to prevent any attacks or violence. This was in June 2017!”

“To the best of our knowledge, neither Governor Ortom nor the Federal Government was aware of the imminence of the cowardly attack on Logo and Guma on the 1^st of January, and therefore any suggestion that the President or the Vice President ignored the state governor’s warning is both absolutely false and certainly misleading.”