Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, on Monday met with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja after which he declared that the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law 2017 was yielding positive results.
The governor said that with the enforcement of the law, there was relative peace regarding the herdsmen/ farmers crisis in the Benue.
The governor spoke to State House Correspondents.
He explained that a total of 400 people had been arrested for violating the law out of which, 50 of them had been convicted.
According to the Benue State governor, about 2,000 cattle had also been seized from herders for contravening the provisions of the law.
Ortom noted: “The place is relatively peaceful. The law is being implemented and we have arrested 400 people irrespective of their ethnic background, whether Fulani, Igbo, Yoruba, Tiv, Idoma and we have convicted 50 people for contravening various offenses and we have seized more than 2,000 cattle. But we have ensured no one has molested any cattle, nor killed any cattle.
“Once your cattle is seized for open grazing by the livestock guard, within seven days when your cattle is quarantined if you don’t come to pay fines and redeem your cattle we auction them. So far, everyone that we have arrested people have come to redeem and so we have not had any cause to auction any cattle, ” he added.
Ortom said, “The law is still in force in Benue State and we are implementing it. Everyone is free to establish ranch, we are not targeting any individual or group. Anyone who wants to do cattle business should come to Benue and ranch, that we have land for it but for open grazing we have no land.”
On a report that 17 states in the country including Benue were insolvent as their Internally Generated Revenues (IGR) in 2018 were far below 10 per cent of total receipts from the Federation Account Allocations (FAAC) in the same year, the governor
however disclosed: “The plan is to look inward and see how we can generate more funds, improve on our IGR, lock some leakages and see how we can cut down cost of governance.
“One thing is that I believe in dialogue and I am very transparent with my finances; they are for everyone to see. I have been very cordial with workers in Benue State.”
Ortom said for him alone, workers should even earn more than N30,000 if the resources are available.
“They deserve it, we go to the same market and so we know the cost of living and other things are involved. The challenge is whether the resources will be there. I believe that we will look for ways and I believe it is not only Benue State, but there are also about 17 states…all together maybe at governors forum, there will be a way to get out of it, ” Ortom noted.
The Economic Confidential in it Annual States Viability Index (ASVI) for 2018, showed that 17 states of the 36 states are insolvent as their IGR in 2018 were far below 10 per cent of their receipts from the Federation Account Allocations (FAAC) in the same year.
The index computed by the report revealed that without the monthly disbursement from Federal Accounts Allocation Commission, many of the states remained unviable and cannot survive without the federally distributed handouts largely from the oil sector.
The IGRs are generated by states through Pay-As-You-Earn Tax (PAYE), direct assessment, road taxes and revenues from Ministries, Departments and Agencies (MDAs).
According to the report, the IGR of the 36 states of the federation totalled N1.1 trillion in 2018 as compared to N931 billion in 2017, an increase of N172 billion.
Also, Ortom said that since Nigeria was a federation, there must be synergy between states and the federal government to surmount the security challenges, to save lives and properties.
Shedding light on the security situation on the Katsina-Ala road in Benue State, the governor said, all the stakeholders in the state are willing to corporate to tackle the insecurity.
According to him, the situation “one notorious criminal “Gana,” who was trained by Boko Haram and has continued to terrorize the state is the problem.
“He is the one instrumental to the kidnappings happening between Benue and Taraba states. All forms of criminality – armed robbery, assassinations and so on. The community too has given up because as at today, the three local governments of Katsina-Ala, Logo and Ukum are not safe.
“No educational, farming, commercial activities is going on, the Igbo that are major traders have vacated. With operation Wierd Stroke we are going to move against them and we believe we will surmount them, ” Ortom stressed.