Lalong: How Not to Play Politics with Insecurity

Notes for File

It is always good to be united against a common enemy or condemn evil when one sees any. This is the story of Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State.

A few years ago when marauding herdsmen turned Benue State to a killing field, rather condemn the action or sympathise with Governor Samuel Ortom and the people of the state, Lalong taunted Ortom.

The Plateau State governor told the world that he had warned the Benue State governor against implementing the state anti-grazing law, stressing that the implementation of the law caused the killings.

Though he later apologised, not many people took him serious because his state has always been a hotbed for attacks and killings by herdsmen, even though it has no anti-open grazing law.

The battle has shifted to Plateau State where hundreds of people including children, and women were being massacred.

But rather than taunt him, Ortom issued a statement sympathising with his Plateau State counterpart over the dastardly act. In a statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, the governor condemned the attacks, describing the killings as ‘barbaric, inhuman and unfortunate,’ which was what the Plateau governor ought to have done when Benue State suffered the same fate.

Plateau State has no anti-open grazing law but yet blood has been flowing in the state in the last one week. Examinations were canceled, while schools were shut down. Tension has enveloped the entire state with curfews imposed.

This is what happens when killings are being unnecessarily politicised.