Nasarawa and Benue States governors have appealed to the Buhari’s led administration not to withdraw Nigerian troops from the states.
Governors Samuel Ortom and Abdullahi Sule of Benue and Nasarawa States made this plea respectively yesterday that Federal Government should retain Operation Whirl Strokes in the states.
Recall that the Federal Government had last December said it would gradually withdraw military operations in some volatile spots in the country, beginning from the first quarter of 2020.
But Governors Sule and Ortom, at a joint security meeting of Nasarawa and the Benue States held in Lafia yesterday, said troops’ withdrawal would not augur well for affected communities as security there was still fragile.
They said they said they had written formally to the authorities concerned to stay put on the planned withdrawal of troops till the situations on the borderline of both states improved.
Sule asked the federal government to give the two states another two years to work on a complete master plan for the return of peace among citizens of the states living on the borderline.
Ortom insisted that the Benue State Anti-open Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Law had come to stay in the state, urging governments at all levels to support herdsmen with incentives as done to farmers.
The Emir of Lafia and chairman of the Nasarawa State Traditional Council, Justice Sidi Bage (rtd), appealed to Ortom to review the Anti-open Grazing Prohibition and Ranching Law.
