Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State yesterday made a passionate appeal to the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, to deploy dozens of armed policemen to the state for security reasons as the influx of herdsmen has become overwhelming.

According to Ceoafrica, this is as the Bayelsa State Government yesterday warned that it would henceforth arrest herdsmen, who graze their cattle elsewhere, other than the designated grazing site at the Bayelsa’s Palm area.

Speaking when the Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG), in-charge of Zone 4, Mr Alkali Baba Usman, paid him a courtesy call at Government House in Makurdi, Ortom said some of the 10,000 policemen recently recruited should be posted to the state after their training.

He said: “Security problems have overwhelmed us especially with the influx of herdsmen and their cattle, everywhere there is fear” and while stressing that impunity should not take over the land, the governor appealed to farmers across the state not to take laws into their hands.

Ortom said the final solution to farmers/herdsmen clashes should be ranching, adding that in South Africa, Swaziland, America and other places, ranching has become the order of the day.

The governor told the new AIG that his coming to Benue was divined and commended the police for doing their best in the face of logistics and other challenges.

Earlier, Usman had told the governor that he would do his best in the face of dwindling resources and competing demands. He said the police would ensure that law-abiding citizens go about their businesses without molestation and promised to work towards the restoration of peace in the state.

Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the Bayelsa State Governor on Security Matters, Chief Boma Spero-Jack, in a statement issued in Yenagoa, said the warning had become imperative despite directives by government which some of the herdsmen have refused to obey by refusing relocating to the grazing area.

He said the decision to create a grazing site was purely for security reasons and to avoid a possible breakdown of law and order that could arise in case of any clash between the herdsmen and farmers or any other group of Bayelsans.

He reassured the people of the state that the ‘Restoration Government’ would stop at nothing to protect the lives and properties of the citizens, as well as protect the overall interest of the Ijaw Nation.

Chief Spero-Jack, however, called for the cooperation of every Bayelsan, as the government was doing its utmost best to avert any likely breakdown of law and order and urged all to be vigilant and not be deceived to believing that the leadership of the state was ceding valuable land of the state to herdsmen.