…Gov Ortom   opens up on killings in the state

…Open grazing now an offence

By Innocent Anaba

Mr Samuel Ortom is the governor of Benue State. In this interview, he spoke on the Anti-Open Grazing Bill he signed into law to address the killings witnessed in recent time following clashes between herdsmen and farmers.

He also spoke on the anti-cultism and kidnapping law to check the rising cases of kidnapping and cultism in the state, the provision of infrastructural development for the state,   security, agriculture and economy of Benue State. Excerpts:

You have been governor for almost two years now. Looking back, how will you describe the experience and journey so far?

I must confess that it is quite an exciting opportunity to acquire new experiences, share with people, relate with more people and find solutions to the very difficult times and challenges that we have. It is exciting. I appreciate God for the grace so far.

We are doing fairly well despite the economic, security and social challenges which we inherited from past administration. We got into a government to meet a deficit treasury, not just empty, but deficit; salary arrears, pensions and gratuities of over N69billion that we inherited, then contractual obligations. There were certificates ready for payment of over N70billion, so, it has not been easy. You find cases of people going to court against the state government for offences and contractual obligations which we did not incur. We have to contend with that and several other things. We appreciate God for how it has been.

But in all that, we decided to add value to the development of the state and to provide dividends of democracy to our people. In the midst of these challenges, we have to prioritize and identify areas that will give us quick gains and add value to human development. So, we took education which we think is key to development, because an enlightened, educated man or woman is better disposed to even operate in farm settlements better and so it applies to everything that has to do with life.

Well, we are quite connected to the people and because of the passion we have for education, we swung into action and started getting results. For instance, the School of Nursing and Midwifery that was shut down for over two years, we reopened it. We have spent more than N700million on it. Today, we have erected new structures, we’ve provided equipment and all that was needed for the school to get accreditation, and today, the School of Nursing and Midwifery is functioning.

We also identified a faith based church organisation that has a School of Nursing and Midwifery and also supported them. Today, the school is back on its feet. Benue State University was shut down for several months before we came in and when we came in, we negotiated with the striking staff, we entered into agreement and started payment of salaries and other benefits. One hurdle we had to cross was the issue of the accreditation of the school of medical sciences.

Have you done anything to improve agricultural sector?

On agriculture, as the food basket of the nation, we discovered that Benue State was losing its grip on agriculture so when we came in, we reiterated that Benue state is the food basket of the nation, that is what Benue people are known for. We decided that we must take positive steps to address the matter. We were able to mobilize our farmers and it was easy to get them on track. Today, almost everybody in Benue State is a farmer. I, as the governor, am the chief farmer of the state. This is something that I have started experimenting over 27 years ago and I have big interest so much so that people who know me wonder where this passion is coming from, but it has become part of me. I have sold the passion for agriculture to our people.

Gov Samuel Ortom

What have you done in the area of security which has been a very big challenge in Benue State?

Most importantly, what we have achieved during these two years is in the security sector because by the time we came on board, Benue State was a den of armed robbers, kidnappers, assassins and all sorts of crimes were going on in the state. We sat down and said look, the primary responsibility of any responsible government is to provide security for lives and property. And for us, we knew that Nigeria was getting into a recession. There wasn’t money at the local government, state and federal levels, at that time, salaries were in arrears. In Benue State, typically a civil service state, when salaries are not paid, it becomes a very big challenge.

So, from the day we started our campaign, we made up our minds to ensure that we diversify the economy of the state to micro, small and medium scale enterprises, to industries to process our primary products so that value addition will be made.

Then we knew that it will provide jobs, create opportunities and also create wealth because no jobs were available at the local government, state and federal levels. And when you have thousands of graduates from the university and the other tertiary institutions in the state coming out every year in addition to the ones from other states, some urgent things needed to be done. In Benue State University alone, we did a combined convocation and we graduated over 12,000 students.

What did you achieve with all these?

The insecurity, kidnappings, killings and all sorts of criminal activities started going down. We were able to bring it down to the barest minimum. However, we discovered that we needed to strengthen it with a legal framework. Another challenge was the issue of herdsmen and farmers clashes. It was quite disturbing when we discovered that the herdsmen had hired militia to come in and support them and every time there were issues between herdsmen and farmers, they would come and attack these communities. Most times these are innocent people that are attacked, maimed and their property destroyed. They did all kinds of things against them. In fact it was just recently after signing the anti-open grazing law that I discovered that they were coming to prosecute a different agenda.

What do you mean by this?

It was when Miyetti Allah spoke that I understood why they were coming to do that kind of wanton destruction in Benue communities. Ordinarily, if it were to be a common conflict between a farmer and a herder, it wouldn’t have got to that level. When you go and destroy a whole city, and turn it upside down with sophisticated weapons, you kill vulnerable people, children and women for no reason, you go about raping women everywhere, that is unacceptable.

We did everything as a people who believed in the rule of law and due process to ensure that we maintain the peace and ensure that the situation did not escalate to anarchy. We had to contend with this for a long time and finally, after researching, after looking at plus and minuses, we decided that the only way out for herdsmen and farmers to live together in the state is to adopt a policy of live and let’s live. We then decided that the approach of ranching will solve the problem as it will allow the herdsmen to rear cattle freely in Benue State.

It will also allow those rearing pigs as well as sheep to do the same but everyone must ranch. This is because the land is no longer there for people to begin to come in and engage in open grazing. If you go round Benue State today, you will discover that there is no single hectare of land that is available for open grazing. Everywhere you go today, you see crops. If you bring in cattle today, you must take them through the highways otherwise you must encroach on somebody’s land. It is true that the Fulani herdsmen live by their cattle, but the farmers too live from what they produce from their farms.

Recently you declared a state of emergency on payment of salaries, what is the implication of this?

The implication is that we gave priority attention to payment of salaries, but we will also fish out ghost workers both at the state and local government levels. This is why we are working together with the leadership of various unions and we believe that we will overcome all these.

We are also thinking and looking ahead that this recession that God has brought to Nigeria this time, can be another opening for several other windows that can help boost the activities of this country and make it great again. We are interested in encouraging the organised private sector and many other youths who have knowledge to come up with ideas and this government is willing to support and provide windows made available by the Central Bank of Nigeria, CBN, Bank of Industry (BOI), Bank of Agriculture, and even commercial banks.

Going forward what do we expect in the next few years of your administration?

We have done two years now, we are looking forward to the remaining two years. It is like football. We have done half time. The idea is to score goals. We are reviewing the last two years, how we have done, where have   we done well, and what can we do to ensure that we maximize the opportunity that Benue people gave us. That is on- going, in the next few weeks, we will come out with our weaknesses and positives, then try to balance it so that we can drive the process to ensure that we do not disappoint the Benue electorate. Despite the challenges that we have, we have conducted the local government election and won under this platform. It is another demonstration of confidence in this party and in my administration.

What was the result of the Local Government elections?

In the 23 local government areas, our party won 23 seats for the chairmanship, and for the 276 council wards, my party won 275. Only one seat was lost to Labour Party. About eight political parties participated in the election. It was the freest, most transparent and peaceful election ever held.