The Benue state government has urged the Inspector General of Police (IGP), Ibrahim Idris, to resign his position for incompetence and for allegedly taking side with killer herdsmen.
This was made known in a statement issued in reaction to the alleged claim by the IGP that the killings in Benue was instigated by the state’s grazing law.
Chief Press Secretary to Governor Samuel Ortom, Terver Akase, signed the statement on behalf of the state government.
Ortom’s words “If truly the IGP said what was widely reported by the media, our conclusion is that his is a clear case of a man who is either on a mission to mislead the nation or is complicit in the attacks on Benue communities and the killing of many people by terror herdsmen,”
In November 2017, Benue became the second state to implement a law that specifically targets the activities of herdsmen in the state, coming months after Governor Ayodele Fayose started enforcing a similar law in Ekiti State.
The laws followed attacks by suspected herdsmen reported in many states.
At a Senate hearing on the recent surge in attacks linked to killer herdsmen across the country, Mr. Idris testified before a closed panel of lawmakers that the anti-open grazing law in Benue State was to blame for the scores of deaths that had been recorded in the agrarian state in recent weeks.
So far this year, over 100 people have been killed in herdsmen attacks across the state. Two local government areas suffered more than 100 deaths in successive attacks between January 1 and 3, an incident that brought the activities of herdsmen under renewed focus across the country.
An outraged Nigerian Senate launched an inquiry into the attacks, with Mr. Idris finally testifying on Friday after initially failing to honour invitations. The Senate also plans a national security summit with the executive over the killings, which are also being regularly recorded in Nasarawa, Taraba, Adamawa and Kaduna States.
