Benue State Online Latest news for Today...

The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has given conditions to which the state government can accept the National Livestock Transformation Plan. The governor said the state government will reject the Plan if it does not conform to the state’s Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law. In 2017, the state enacted the law to curb killings and destruction of farms by herdsmen. According to Sunday Punch, Ortom’s Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, in an interview on Saturday, said the state government would adopt the FG’s policy provided it conformed to the law. He said the state had made some progress as a result of the law and would not allow anybody to drag it back to the era when there was no law guiding animal husbandry. The FG had planned to introduce Ruga settlements for herdsmen but the criticisms that greeted the project forced the government to suspend it. Read more here.

Governor Samuel Ortom has announced the appointment of Andrew Ayabam as Acting Chairman, Benue State Internal Revenue Service (BIRS), Concise News reports. Ayabam takes over from Mr Terzungwe Atser. Ortom, had earlier announced the reappointment of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG), Professor Anthony Ijohor, SAN. The Governor had also reappointed his Chief of Staff, Terwase Obunde. The Governor announced the new appointment in a statement on Monday by Terver Akase, his Chief Press Secretary. Read more here.

An early Monday morning attack has left four people dead at Jootar, a Tiv settlement in Benue state, Concise News reports. It would be recalled that Jukun and Tiv ethnic groups have been locked in dispute with each other for the past five (5) months over what started as a minor disagreement. Over 70 persons have been killed and property worth’ millions of naira destroyed so far in the lingering crisis. This online news medium gathered that the suspected Jukun militia stormed the border town at about 4:00 am when the people were fast asleep and set many houses ablaze. They also shot and killed four (4) persons who attempted to escape. Read more here.

Joseph Jinawa, a witness in the election petition challenging the victory of Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, has told the Election Tribunal that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) allocated votes to itself at 006 polling unit, Ikyor, Agasha Ward, Guma Local Government. Concise News reports that Jinawa, who was led in evidence by Wahab Egbewole (SAN), counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Emmanuel Jime, told the tribunal on Monday in Makurdi that PDP members also stopped him from witnessing the recording of the same result. Jime and the APC are challenging the re-election of Ortom of the PDP on the grounds that the polls were massively rigged. “After they completed recording the results on the election day, they threw the result sheet on the ground for me to pick. “It was at that point that I discovered that PDP scored 552 votes, while APC had six. “While accreditation and voting was ongoing, I took manual counting of the number of voters. “By my manual accreditation, 374 people were accredited, not 562. “That is why I am challenging the result.” Read more here.

And that’s all for today on the round-up of the latest Benue State online news headlines.