Ortom convenes stakeholders meeting to brainstom over Fulani invasion

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has disclosed that he has convened a meeting of stakeholders in the state to brainstorm over the invasion of several parts of the state by herdsmen.
He made the disclosure during a meeting with youths from Tarka local government area who had earlier in the day blocked the Makurdi-Gboko highway to protest the killing of people in the area including the All Progressives Congress, APC, local government youth leader in the area, Mr Aondohemba Kasar, by herdsmen.

Governor Ortom stated that the security council met on the matter today and directed that security should be beefed up in flash points in Tarka and other local government areas even as the Commissioner of Police and Army commander were ordered to arrest those responsible.
He stated that the security challenges have overwhelmed the state and called on the people of the state to seek divine intervention alongside human efforts to secure lives and property.
The Governor stated that he had convened a stakeholders meeting for next Thursday to deliberate on the security and other challenges confronting the state and urged the youths to contribute ideas towards fashioning out solutions to the crisis.
According to him, the invasion was a serious threat to efforts of the people to scale up investment in agriculture to boost food production and the economy generally.
Earlier, leader of the delegation, Mr Alima Tertsegha Asanyi, stated that they embarked on the protest to press home their condemnation of the complete sack of three council wards in the local government area and the daily murder of scores of people on their farms.
He stated that the development adversely affected farming actives in the entire local government area such that famine was imminent.
Mr Asanyi, who is the President of Tarka Central Youths, appealed for the state and federal governments' intervention to stop the killings and restore nomalcy as the marauders have vowed to overrun all the major settlements in the local government area.
Governor Ortom, represented by his Secretary to the State Government, Mr Targema Takema, had visited Wannune and appealed to the youths to dismantle their roadblocks and allow free flow of traffic and they obliged.