The National President of Miyetti Allah Kautal Hore, Alhaji Bello Abdullahi Bodejo, says arrested herders in Benue State paid over N100m fine in compliance with the state’s anti-grazing law.
Bedelo said while speaking with journalists on Thursday.
He said: “What our people are facing is a kind of organised state terrorism. You have governors enacting laws to destroy the pastoralists’ means of economic livelihood without alternatives being put in place.
“We are really being treated as if we are not citizens of this country and is a deliberate attempt to disenfranchise us and at the end radicalize our youths.
“Between January and March this year, the Benue State Government has collected over N100m as fines and penalties from innocent Fulani pastoralists, especially in the Benue-Taraba and Benue-Nasarawa borders.
“What Governor Ortom has succeeded in doing with that law is to create a legal monster that he is using to extort our people, through the livestock guard perpetrating all manners of injustices.
“We are still in court and urging President Muhammadu Buhari to call Governor Ortom to order.”
