Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has warned that Nigeria may be headed for food scarcity next year unless the federal government takes a drastic measure against the prevailing insecurity in the state, asserting that the Benue people are predominantly farmers for which the state is reputed as the food basket of the nation.
Ortom spoke yesterday during the visit of the wife of the Vice President, Mrs. Dolapo Osinbajo, to the Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs camp in Makurdi, the Benue state capital.
He warned that the drop in oil prices at the international market had left the country and the state with no other option than to boost agriculture for the survival of the economy, but that the nation risks starvation if the activities of the strange herdsmen are not checked.
“The various IDP camps indicate that we are under siege in Benue. The destruction in the state is more than the insurgency in the North-east and if the federal government does not rise to stop this insurgency, there will be no food in Nigeria next year,” he said.
The Governor went on to claim that the herdsmen terrorising many local government areas of the state were foreigners from Niger, Mali, Chad, Ghana and Senegal among others, and not the normal Fulani herdsmen who had lived peaceful with citizens of the state.
DAILYPOST
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