Herdsmen reportedly kill 3 persons in Ortom’s home town

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Uba Group

Three persons have been reportedly killed by suspected armed herdsmen in Governor Samuel Ortom’s country home on Saturday evening.

The trio (two males and a female) were said to have been attacked along the Lordye-Gbajimba Road in Guma Local Government Area of the state on their way from a burial ceremony.

It was learnt that those killed were ambushed while on a motorcycle. Two of them were said to have been shot while the third was hacked to death with a machete.

The governor was reported to have lamented that armed herdsmen besieged his home town preventing him from accessing his village and farms in the community.

A source said that the remains of the victims were recovered and deposited at the Gbajimba General Hospital by troops of Operation Whirl Stroke attached to the LGA.

Ortom, during a thanksgiving service organised in his honour on Sunday by the Benue branch Chairman of the Christian Association of Nigeria, Rev. Akpen Leva, at the NKST Church Lortyer, Makurdi, said, “It is not acceptable that Fulanis from Niger, Senegal, Mali, and several other countries would be allowed to come into our country and continue to kill our people to take over our land and the Federal Government is looking the other way and they want me to keep quiet.

“They even went as far as wanting me to take money and keep quiet. I cannot sell my people for all the money in the world. If others are doing that, Samuel Ortom will not. So they should forget it.

“That goes to tell you that this Federal Government is evil. Most of our frontline local government areas are not safe. These people come and kill our people and none of them is arrested. And they want me to keep quiet, I will not.

“I will not engage in illegality but I must say that we are getting to a level that we will be left no other option but to defend ourselves and families. And I want to call on the Federal Government to give us permission to carry AK47 rifles to defend themselves against these killers who go about with AK47 riffles sacking our villages and communities and killing our loved ones.

“We have not committed any crime in Benue State, everything I do is in line with the directives of the people. They asked for the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law and that is what we did. That law can only be rescinded the day the people ask me to do so.

“I will continue to stand for the truth even if it will cost me my life I am prepared. I was told that they have made seven attempts on my life already. The people they sent confessed after the seventh attempt failed. They must realize that my life is not in the hands of anyone.”

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