Buhari must arise, provide leadership for Nigerians – Ortom

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State is one man who stood firm in the defence of democracy, rule of law, safety of lives and property of Nigerians, especially of his people. Benue was one of the first states to enact the Anti-Open Grazing Law in 2017, which provides for ranching as the modern way for animal husbandry. In this interview with JOHN Echezons UNACHUKWU, he shares his views on the operation of the Anti-Open Grazing Law, security challenges, state of the nation and urges President Muhammadu Buhari to arise and provide leadership for millions of Nigerians who voted him into power.

You were quoted as asking President Muhammadu Buhari to rise up and provide leadership. Why did you say this?

Yes, Mr. President must rise up; he is the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and over the 250 nationalities that are in this country voted for him as their President, yes, we all voted him. He took an oath of office to secure the country and provide security for lives and property of the people. This is the primary responsibility of government. But a situation where people are killed like animals and their property destroyed with reckless abandon without any form of intervention from the Federal Government is unacceptable; this cannot continue. Mr. President must rise up to address the nation himself, not Garba Shehu or any of his assistants. Mr. President must tell us where we are going in this country; this is too much. He is our President for goodness sake! These killings cannot continue like this. The activities of herdsmen in the country must be condemned while the people should come together to hold the President to account. No fewer than 70 people have been killed in the last two weeks in three local governments of Benue State, in addition to the recent attacks that left six people dead, while one of the several injured victims later died in the hospital. The people of Benue are being overstretched and running out of patience due to the incessant attacks on their communities. We are becoming a banana republic. If we have a President who gave the security agencies order to shoot on sight whosoever is having AK-47 and the Minister of Defence came out to say that they cannot shoot on sight, so who is the Commander in Chief of the Armed Forces?

I want to commend you for the way you managed the #EndSARS crisis in Benue because it didn’t escalate in Benue State the way it escalated in other states of the federation. Against the backdrop of this crisis and the youth summit which you have organised, how do you think we can resolve the issue of these youths’ demands and the #EndSARS protest?

Let me first appreciate the Almighty God for the wisdom, knowledge and understanding to have handled the #EndSARS challenge that came to our country. Benue State was not excluded, we were part of it. I felt that the youth had a genuine demand as long as they were peaceful, orderly and lawful. They had a genuine demand in the sense that successive administrations have failed to deliver on their mandate because most of these youths you saw on the streets are graduates, some with second and third degrees and a situation where you have spent time in primary, in secondary school and in the university for your first, second and even your third degree and there is no hope coming, frustration comes in and you can go into a lot of things; and that is what I saw happening our country and even in Benue State. Two years ago, I did a combined convocation as visitor at the Benue State University and graduated 35,000 students and the following week I went to Benue Polytechnic, Ugbokolo and we graduated 32,000 and I was wondering within myself, graduating 77,000 students; what is going to happen to these people? It’s a much number that if they come together, it will be a disaster. What are you going to do with them? Where are the jobs? At the local government, at the state, at the federal level and then with the private sector where nothing is going on and I kept wondering until #EndSARS protest came in.

Do you attribute the protests to idleness of the youths?

It is said that an idle hand is the devil’s workshop. You can’t have these kinds of intellectual young men and women idling and doing nothing and expect them to do nothing. They will look for something they can do be it good or bad like what you saw in the #EndSARS protests.  This is the challenge. But I felt that, look, I support what these young people are doing and their demands were genuine and out of frustration. Then they needed a more proactive leadership that can provide for them. So far, with me inclusive, we have failed in providing leadership but this failure must be graded at the local government level, at the state and the federal government level.

How so sir?

The Federal Government has the greatest share of this failure because this is a federation and we expect leadership to come from there but we are not seeing it. Most of the things happening in our country today, ask any manufacturer, ask any private sector person, they will tell you the difficulties they are having with the Central Bank to import, or even export, goods. So, there is no friendly business environment in Nigeria today despite several committees that have been set up on the ease of doing business and all that. I am a business man from the organised private sector. I know what the companies I set up are going through. It is pretty difficult and so we have not been able to set a programme that will give confidence to these youths.

So what did you do in Benue State to minimize the damages?

For me here in Benue State, I was able to convince them because, one; my previous position on matters like these has not been hidden. I have always voiced out that I am not comfortable with what this government is doing. One, the failure of security architecture; two, the failure of the economic architecture in this country and three, the failure of the political will to drive the security and the economy and then you leave us with nothing. For me, as far as I’m concerned, I agree with the youth and if I were not a governor, I would have joined them to do the protests because they were genuine and they understood with me because they know me that I am very transparent when it comes to issues like this and I am very factual with what was happening so they agreed.

What else did you do besides this?

But moving beyond the protest, I felt that in our own little way we must do something. I called them together that look, we must organise a youth summit that in the midst of all the challenges that we are having, what can we do as a way forward, what can we do to add value to security development and economic development? And in doing this I want to harness ideas from the youth themselves. They may have brighter ideas than what I know or what people around me are telling me. So, let me give them the opportunity of bringing them together from the 23 local governments we have to see if there are other creative ways that we can put on the table and make it work for Benue people, and I think this is where we are going. They accepted it and we are planning a youth summit for November 25, 26 and 27 2020. We will sit together and I will personally be there with them for those three days and I believe that there will be other creative ways. Of course we are going to get some resource persons who are going to speak to us and at the end we shall harness all the ideas and put them together and see what can be done to add value to our development.

One of the key steps that you have taken that is renowned all over the country is the anti-open grazing law which came and was passed into law in 2017, over three years back. Looking back, how would you appraise that law? Has it achieved the purpose for which the assembly passed it? Are there areas of amendment, or is there any regret for passing and implementing that law in Benue State?

I must appreciate God Almighty once again for the wisdom that he gave us to initiate that process of enacting the law prohibiting open grazing and provision for ranching. It remains the global best practice all over the world. All these cattle that we are talking about in Nigeria that are creating so many problems are less than 20 million herds of cattle. But in places like India, you have over 275 million herds of cattle, places like Argentina you have over 100 million herds of cattle, places like Brazil you have over 300 million herds of cattle, America you have over 100 million, China you have over 100 million, even in South Africa here, the number of cattle you have there are over 40 million. This is more than Nigeria, but you don’t see or witness the kind of crisis that we are witnessing in Nigeria and that is why I keep saying that this is a deliberate attempt to seize our land, displace the people and take over the land of our people by these Fulani herdsmen who are not from Nigeria, but are coming from Senegal; they are coming from Mali, they are coming from Niger, they are coming from Chad and other parts of Africa. Suddenly, the Fulani herdsmen and Fulani nation have discovered that they have no single nation and were wandering all over the place and so they decided that Nigeria remains the only country that Allah has given to them.

Why do you say this?

That is what they have said. They did a press conference and announced this to the whole world. And so they feel that all Fulanis round the world after meeting in 2006 in Yola, they decided that all Fulanis should come and take over Nigeria as their only legitimate country and that is where they belong and that is where they will settle and that is why the federal government is insensitive. They are not prepared to curb the issue of herdsmen just moving all over the place and taking over people’s land. Now you talk about even those who are given legitimate licenses to own double barrel or pump action to surrender, but you are not talking about Fulani herdsmen with AK47, which is more sophisticated, to surrender their guns, because they have it to protect themselves. They kill people and, apart from Benue here, tell me anywhere in Nigeria where a Fulani person has been convicted? Here we convict them.

How do you do this?

We go through the real legal processes, so it is that law that has provided us the enabling environment to prosecute Fulani herdsmen and convict them and there are no regrets whatsoever. The law has succeeded and as I talk to you now, more than 140 herdsmen have been convicted legally. More than 600 herdsmen have been arrested, some are undergoing the process of litigation, prosecution and all that. More than 12,000 herds of cattle have been arrested, quarantined and the owners came to pay fines as stipulated by the law. So our law is effective, it is working. Our livestock guards are working with the active collaboration of the agro rangers from Civil Defense. The Nigerian Army is working with us to implement the law, the Police are working with us to implement the law and here we are law-abiding, the law is working. So, we are very grateful to the Almighty God for giving us the wisdom. If we had no instrument like the law we have, then people will complain that we are doing things illegally, but now, there is no room for open grazing in Benue State. Everybody is aware. The courts are aware, security agencies are aware and so if you trespass, you will be prosecuted. The Fulani herdsmen know that if they come to Benue today doing open grazing, they are trespassing against our law and when they are arrested, they have no justification than to obey and pay a fine or to go through the process of prosecution and be convicted. They are aware. You can do it in any other place or any other state you are free to do open grazing, but here in Benue State it is prohibited and I think that has brought relative calm and peace to our people. If you go round our villages now, majority of our people who were displaced are back to their ancestral homes doing their farm work. A few of them have not been able to go back because their shelter were destroyed and there has not been any form of rehabilitation to help them go back. Of course, there are still some guerilla tactics that have been adopted by these Fulanis. They come without cows, kill and go back. That is still going on, but we as a government, we are working together with the security men to ensure that we surmount that. But they know that what they are doing is wrong. It is criminality and when they are arrested they will definitely be prosecuted. So we have no regrets. We are thinking of amending the law but not in the interest of those Fulani men, it is in our own interest because we discovered that the cattle that are quarantined, the amount that they pay is not much, we intend to increase it. We are going to increase the amount that they pay and, of course, our law stipulates that when they cannot pay the fine and claim the cattle within seven days it should be auctioned and that we have been doing. So that is where we are. We have no regret whatsoever enacting the law and implementing it. We will continue to strengthen it wherever we see that there is need to do that. That is where we are.

On the final note, COVID-19 has come and a lot of lives were lost. How do you think we can leverage on law and technology to improve and ensure food security?

Thank you very much. As you know democracy is anchored on the rule of law. For good governance, there must be rule of law in place to be able to implement policies. Lawlessness will lead to anarchy. Lawlessness will lead to underdevelopment. It is the law that guides us to do what is right. And so today coming out of COVID-19, it is expedient to respect the rule of law especially in a democratic setup like we have here in Nigeria. Gone are the days when our people were peasant farmers who worked to have enough for their families and themselves. Today in Nigeria we are talking about going beyond the oil economy. We are talking about initiating new directions that can add value to the economic development of our country. We cannot continue depending on oil that the prices are not even stable, and new discoveries are being made. So we must add technology to ensure that we improve on agricultural production. One thing that we have comparative advantage here in Benue State, we don’t have oil but we have comparative advantage in agriculture and taking on the agricultural value chain, adding technology to it, there is so much that can be achieved to impact on our economic development. The tractors we bought no doubt have been distributed and no doubt have added value greatly to agricultural production. Today I can assure you that the economic benefits are enormous and will definitely add value to our development. So it is important that while we observe the rule  of law and ensure that everyone knows his limits and direction as to what to do to go about his or her activities, we must also employ new technology to ensure that we improve because the demand will be more. We need an economy that will not just be consuming, we need an economy that we can export, and we need an economy that we can produce more and get people to be engaged in the course of the value chain. I know that the agricultural value chain has a lot of benefits that can be provided in terms of job creation, wealth creation, opportunities that can be created as a result of the agricultural value chain especially when we use technology in providing seedlings, in providing, even cultivation and then weeding, harvesting, storage and of course processing, packaging and marketing. These are things that only technology can really improve to take it to the international best standard so that they can be exported for our benefit.