Benue: Govt Backed Vigilantes Killing Herdsmen – Miyetti Allah

The National President of the association, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, and National Secretary, Engr. Saleh Alhassan, said this while speaking with newsmen in Abuja on Thursday.

Miyetti Allah also claimed that some herdsmen in Benue paid over N100m fine in three months in compliance with the state’s anti-grazing law.

Naming major problems faced by herdsmen, Bodejo mentioned killings by tribal gangs, negative anti-grazing laws that have emasculated their means of economic livelihood and outright expulsions by some state governors who issued quit notices.

Asked about what they are doing to stop the injustice, Bodejo said since they are not the government, they can only sensitize the people on the need to live peacefully in the communities they find themselves.

He said, “The issue of providing security is the responsibility of the government, this is the primary responsibility of any government to protect the citizens and we believe that our people have been failed particularly in protecting their lives and means of economic livelihood.

“What our people are facing is a kind of organised state terrorism our people are facing in parts of the country and you have governors enacting laws to destroy their means of economic livelihood without alternatives being put in place.

“We are really being treated as if we are not citizens of this country and is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise us and at the end radicalized our youths.”