Terver Akase is a former governorship aspirant in Benue State and also the former Chief Press Secretary to former Governor Samuel Ortom. In this interview with , Akase speaks on the recurring killings in Benue State, the Benue State Open-Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Establishment Law under former Governor Samuel Ortom, why the Federal Government should act fast to restore peace in the state, among others. Excerpts: 

 

No, the law is not Ortom’s anti-open-grazing law. The law is Benue State Open-Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Establishment Law. Former Governor Otom was only a messenger of Benue people. He signed that law, which was popularly passed by the state Assembly in 2017. After public hearings were held in the three senatorial zones of Benue State, Governor Otom convened a stakeholders meeting before Benue people on May 22, 2017, and subsequently signed that law. So, it’s not an Ortom law. It’s a Benue State law. 

Well, I wouldn’t know because I don’t speak for him. So, I wouldn’t know why he was against it. Our job; I mean the then governor, my boss, was to enact a law that was demanded by Benue people and he enforced this law for the rest of the years after 2017. He left office two years ago. So, if anyone has any misgivings with that law, the person probably needs to go back to the people through their representatives in the state House of Assembly. And the person wouldn’t need to recourse to Ortom as a former governor because it is not Ortom’s law. It is the people’s law. So, we wouldn’t be speaking on whatever anyone feels about the law. When the government comes in and makes legislation and leaves office, that legislation becomes the take-home for national legislation. So, it is up to whoever is in power to have a look at it. But of course, governments are free to look at laws and see what they can make of them. So, what a successive government does with a law is not in our power to determine; what the government that came after us does with that law is entirely up to them but the law was entirely Benue State law and it was enacted in good faith to ensure we do the right thing and live in peace. Ortom has left office and it is up to the present administration to do whatever it likes with what was made as a law under the past administration. 

I will not be speaking on things like that because my boss was involved. He was the man before this governor. So, I don’t think it is right for me to speak on such aspects now. This is because speaking about it now would be like, okay because we are no longer at the government house, we are now also criticising. Like I have said, we made the law and we gave the law to Benue people. So, whatever this government does with that law, it is entirely up to them. I am not talking about this particular law, not just that one, there are many other laws that the Ortom administration sincerely made. And there are many laws that the government of George Akume made before Ortom. I mean there are laws that the government of George Akume made before Ortom came in. So, when a government comes in, I mean, whatever they do at that time, it is within their power and in this case, whatever they do with the Benue State Open-Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Establishment Law, is all about their decision. 

Well, I don’t know if the law has been repealed. The governor has said the law is still in force. He has said the state is still having the law. So, I am not in a position to know if the law has been repealed, but I am only concerned about the killings that are going on. So, my hope is that these killings will end very soon. And thankfully, Mr. President visited the state and gave marching orders to the security agencies and other stakeholders. Hopefully, we will see improvement in security in the state. This is because Benue people are upbeat, Benue people are looking forward to a solution. The visit showed that the President has heard the cries of the people and he is determined to solve the problem. The people are looking forward and hoping that the meeting will produce tangible results, the kind of results that will lead to the end of these massacres that have been going on here because our people, if you look at the pictures, you see the pictures of the killings of last Friday night. Our people are grieving. So it’s hard, very hard for me, you know. So, our prayer is that all hands will be on deck and all efforts should be made to end this crisis. 

No, that one I know very well that there is nothing like that. There is nothing like a reprisal attack here because our people do not share boundaries with armed herders. The armed herders do not have any community in Benue where they reside. And then there is the missing link here in the so-called report. You can only have communal clashes with people that you share boundaries with. We are looking at a situation where people come in either with cows or without cows and attack our people, especially at night. Look at what happened on that Friday night. They came around a few minutes to 11 p.m when people had gone to sleep. They put fuel on households and put fire there, burning people while in their sleep. Now, that is a situation that is unacceptable in any part of the world. So those people who were sleeping, where did they go to fight? There was no fracas, there was no clash anywhere, no provocation. What is happening in Benue is nothing but an agenda for occupation. It’s an agenda for occupation of our land. It is a deliberate attempt to take over our communities and that was why that law was made to stop it. It was because of this that the law has a component for ranching, specifying that those who come to Benue to graze, I mean to rear animals, have to put those animals in a ranch. So they won’t allow the animals to be roaming the bushes and encroaching on people’s farms and destroying those farms. So there is nothing like a clash as people used to report about farmers-herders clash. There is nothing like reprisal because our people do not attack anyone. Where would you even see them (the herders) to go and attack them? They come and kill and go back. So that narrative is wrong and I hope that those who are pushing the narrative will drop it as quickly as possible because it is not true that there are attacks and reprisals. Our people are not cattle rustlers. Our people are farmers. They are crop farmers and they wake up looking forward to going to their farms to farm and produce foods. That is what we have been known for, for so many years because Benue is the food basket of the nation. So our people are preoccupied with farming. They have no reason to look forward to going to rustle cattle and then result in reprisals. There is nothing like reprisals in the attacks. 

Well, some decades ago, we had full-on grazing in Benue State. But there was no issue of attacks on innocent farmers until less than 20 years ago when the criminal aspects started. This may be because of the increase of population because in those days we had farming, you could move around Nigeria and you would see a lot of uncultivated land because the population was smaller then in the 50s and 60s and even the 70s. But towards the 80s and 90s, the population began to explode and now Nigeria is said to be heading towards 300 million people. Now, if you have such a situation and the land has not expanded, the land is still the same land that was there when the population of this country was less than 60 million people, it may be a challenge. So, people have moved into the hinterland to occupy the land. You don’t have unoccupied lands any longer. You don’t have uncultivated lands anywhere. Hospitals have been built. Schools have been built. Look at the Tactical Air Command in Makurdi, for example. What we hear is that it was built where there were no warehouses and it was plain in those days, maybe in the 60s, 70s. Now, you have that place down there and if Fulanis were before coming in to graze in such an area, it won’t be so now without any problem. Then, the Fulanis go and graze around the Tactical Air Command, they cannot do that now. So, what it means is that the population has grown and places are occupied. Look at where the Federal University of Agriculture in Makurdi, now Joseph Sarwuan Tarka University, is situated. It used to be a very expansive, massive land. But now, that university is sitting on many hectares. If the Fulanis were grazing on such land and now they come, they will meet a university there. So, certainly, they will have to move to other areas, and now we have farmlands here and there. And when they go in there, they meet farmlands, actually, and when they begin to graze on people’s farmlands, then nobody will be happy that you are destroying his or her source of income. But that’s not enough reason to attack a farmer. So, when they come, they go into people’s crops, they eat their maize, they eat everything that they can eat, yam, etcetera. They eat everything that they can pick. And when the people complain, they now come and kill them. They don’t even want the people to complain. So, that’s what the problem is. And you find this happening in Benue, in Plateau States, and some other places around the Middle Belt. 

You see, we don’t want to be talking about this issue. Governor Ortom is someone who doesn’t support violence and he has sympathised with the families of those who have been killed. In fact, his own relatives were killed because the last attack happened in Guma, and you know that is where he is from. So, he is also in tears, he’s in pain. And we wouldn’t want to comment about what happened during the protest, because we were not there. And you know, Governor Ortom doesn’t receive security reports as before. He’s not the chief security officer of the state, so he doesn’t have the knowledge to know what happened, and why there were reports that the security men shot at youths protesting, and tear gas was thrown at them. So, if I jump into commenting on that issue now, I may be speaking on wrong information, which if I’m asked to provide evidence, I will not have.