“Perhaps, it is apt to state clearly that the likes of Governor el-Rufai are already in a hysteric ‘mode’ of escalating and indeed, externalising banditry, especially as the military onslaught against criminal elements and other terror variants suffices in the North”.
With the above words, Governor Rotimi Akeredolu of Ondo State declared that his Kaduna State counterpart, Nasir el-Rufai, “is escalating and externalising banditry”.
Akeredolu was reacting to el-Rufai’s statement who, on Tuesday, described the anti-open grazing laws being signed by some Southern governors as not “implementable.”
But Akeredolu, in a statement by his Information Commissioner, Donald Ojogo, said such a statement should not have come from a governor like el-Rufai.
In the statement titled, ‘Anti-open grazing: El-Rufai’s attack on southern governors devious, a hysteric ploy to externalise banditry’, Akeredolu reiterated that the anti-open grazing law, especially in Ondo State, had come to stay, saying:“It shall be zealously guarded and conscionably deployed to protect all residents of Ondo State, notwithstanding their ethnic and religious biases.”
“From all indications, Governor Nasir El-Rufai, if he was properly quoted and his views not misrepresented, is struggling hard to export banditry to the South under an expressed opinion that is laced with mischief.
“For emphasis, any such comment like that of the Kaduna Governor, if indeed he made that statement, merely seeks to encourage anarchy under the guise of resentment of a law by affected stakeholders,” the statement added.
