“Pick up Your Guns and Knives and Defend Yourselves From Herdsmen” said Benue State Governor

Samuel Ortom, Benue State Governor has told his people to take up their weapons and defend themselves from herdsmen who go about killing and destroying farmlands.

Benue has been battling a recurring farmers-herders crisis since Nigeria’s return to civil rule, just like most states in the north central and north western region of Nigeria. The governor has gone on the record to lambast President Muhammadu Buhari who he says isn’t doing enough to checkmate the herders, most of whom are of Fulani extraction.

on Sunday, May 23, 2021, Speaking at an interdenominational church service at the Chapel of Grace in Government House, Makurdi, Ortom said:

“I’ll no longer announce the deaths of those killed by Fulani herdsmen. Rise up and defend yourselves with weapons not prohibited by law–bows and arrows, spears and knives.

“Get license for dane guns from local government Chairmen and use them to defend yourselves,” he charged.

Ortom once said he ran a couple of kilometers as herders tried to kill him. He also told the congregation that;

“God assured me some time back that as long as I lived within the circle of his presence, no weapon fashioned against me shall prosper.”

Governor Ortom abandoned the APC party for the opposition PDP in 2018.