For some time, Benue State seems to have become a hot zone based on activities of criminals who spared little or nothing to perpetrate atrocities in the state which prides itself as the food basket of the nation. Concerted efforts made by both the government and security agencies seem to yield little results as the hoodlums intensified their nefarious activities. Luckily, the state government, in conjunction with the new police boss in the state has mapped out strategies aimed at smoking the criminals out from their dens and it seems to be paying off.

The success of the effort depends, to a large extent, on fishing out the state’s notorious terror kingpin, popularly called Gana who is presently on the run. A ransom of N5million has been placed on him but his arrest seems to be a herculean task. The state Governor, Samuel Ortom, who is visibly angry with the situation spoke exhaustively on this and other security issues with our Crime Editor, Emma Nnadozie and Peter Duru in Makurdi. Excerpts:

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.

Gov. Ortom of Benue State

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.