Miyetti Allah, the umbrella body of herdsmen in the country, has denied partaking in an assassination attempt on Samuel Ortom, Benue State governor that failed at the weekend.
Mr Ortom who has been at loggerheads with violent herders in the state claimed he was attacked on his farm near Tyo-mu, along Makurdi-Gboko Highway on Saturday.
He accused herdsmen without presenting a tangible evidence to back up his claim, although the attack came a month after he alerted Nigerians of plots by his Benue counterpart, Bala Mohammed, in cohorts with herdsmen, to kill him.
In a statement by the National Secretary of Miyetti Allah, Alhassan Saleh, the group dismissed the governor’s claim, saying herdsmen are no longer in the state having been driven away.
Mr Saleh claimed the attack is political.
“Herdsmen cannot attack him. There are even no herdsmen in Benue state because he has driven them away. He’s just behaving like a tout, and it’s unfortunate that such a person could become a governor,” he said.
“He trivialises everything. The attack is political; they are killing themselves there. There are killers around him; everybody knows.
“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,” Saleh added.
The rebuttal came after the Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they acted on behalf of the Fulani ethnic stock.
“Yes. Yes, we did. The Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM) carried out the attack. We have genuine reasons. We acted on behalf of millions of Fulani people in 15 countries,” FUNAM said in a statement.
