The governor of Ebonyi State, Chief David Umahi yesterday threatened that the state will make a law to prevent troubled herdsmen from entering into the state.
He regretted that herdsmen blocked him from entering into his village.
Umahi made this known while addressing his exco-members during the first executive council meeting that took place at the exco-chambers, government house Abakaliki.
He words: “On Monday we will meet with our brothers and sisters, the herdsmen living in Ebonyi, we have managed ourselves very well but we are not happy.
“It takes enough of tolerance and a lot of patience and spirit of love for the leader of the state to condone what is happening here to happen. For if it happens in other states, they will go to war.
“A lot of our farm lands has been destroyed, in everyday people will send text messages to me. So we will review our relationship with them and we will warn them that we will not continue to tolerate that. We will like to identify who and who are the real herdsmen that have been staying with us in Ebonyi state. And so, we will prevent those of them that will want to migrate to Ebonyi to cause trouble here.
“We will make our law that trouble herdsmen Will not come to Ebonyi, so we register them and know who they are. So that if anybody is expanding it and we will say no to that
“During the meeting we will do a serious warning. Imagine governor will be moving on the way and cattles as far away in my village stopping the movement of a sitting governor.
“What kind of country is that, we will not tolerate it again, neither shall we say that the herdsmen who have stayed with us for 60 years should leave us.
“But we have to agree on what happens. We told them that we can open rice horse for your cattles and then it is their duty to go out there and get it for their Cows.
“We were told the other day that the herdsmen allowed their thousands of cattle at Ezzillo to finish our rice. In Izzi, Afikpo north and Ivo LGAs the same thing. We will not continue to fold our hands and allow herdsmen to continue to destroyed our crops, neither shall we take the laws into our hands.”
The governor also commended President Mohummadu Buhari for sending troops to Benue state to forestall further killings of the people of the area but tasked him to fish out the killers and bring them to face the wrath of the law.
“We thank the federal government for deploying a large troop to Benue state to forestall further Killings but we request them to do every thing possible to fish out the killers and bring them to book so that it will serve as Warning to others.
There is no religion that permit the taken away a life of another man.
“It is God that gives life. And so, God cannot give and expect a lower being to take the life away. And we also sympathize with River state about the people that was massacred and we commend President Buhari and security agency especially the army on the wonderful work they did in tracking the leader of the militants that massacre our people in River state.
“And we ask them to fish out the remaining members of the gang so that they will face the law accordingly.”
Umahi also announced the approval of N29 million naira for the purchase of rice, yam, wrapper and other items to assist the displaced persons in Taraba and Benue states.
“I want to thank exco-members for approving N29 million to assist our brothers and sisters who were displaced in Taraba and Benue states”, he added.
