The Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore has absolved herdsmen of any role in the attack on the convoy Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, insisting that the attack was political.
Reacting to the attack and Ortom’s comment, the National Secretary of the organisation, Alhassan Saleh, in an interview with The Puch, wondered how herdsmen who had all been driven out of the state attack the governor.
He said: “Herdsmen cannot attack him. There are even no herdsmen in Benue State because he has driven them away. He’s just behaving like a lout and it’s unfortunate that such a person could become a governor. He trivialises everything. The attack is political; they are killing themselves there. There are killers around him; everybody knows.
“We don’t take him seriously again. Where are the herdsmen in Benue State? Herdsmen have no hands in whatever killings that are happening in Benue State. He has been arresting herders at the Taraba-Benue border communities with his militiamen. They would arrest herders and cattle and impose taxes on them.
“If nemesis would catch up with him for his atrocities against herders, it’s the killers that he is breeding, not herders, that will finish him. We don’t have any hands in his matter.”