"confront Any Herdsman Carrying Ak 47 In Ebonyi", Umahi
Ebonyi state governor, Chief David Umahi has directed the people and security agencies to confront any herdsman coming into the state with AK 47 riffle in line with the earlier directive of President Muhammed Buhari.
Umahi said for the herdsmen to desert the state overnight when nobody asked them to go means they were privy to all the attacks in the State ..
Governor Umahi gave the order while briefing newsmen on the outcome of the enlarged security council meeting at the Executive Council chambers, government house, Abakaliki.
He called on the leadership of Myetti Allah to prevail on the herdsmen to stay away for now pending when normalcy will return in the state stressing that there is high tension in the state presently as a result of the killings.
The Governor condemned in its entirety the killing of policemen and burning of police facilities adding that if the federal government decided to withdraw police from the south East, how will they feel.
He urged the people of south east to know that their problems are not just herdsmen but they are problems to themselves and enjoined leaders to rise up and condemn such killings.
He directed the Local government Chairmen to ensure they enforce the ban on open grazing anytime the healthy herdsmen return to Ebonyi
"on the issue of herdsmen, we want to place it on record that no herdsman is in Ebonyi state as at now, we didn't ask them to leave, they left on thier own, meaning that they were privy to the attacks on Ebonyi state .
" I have been talking to the national leadership to please beg them, that what is going on in the various states, no state governor has control of bandits, and because of the killings of defenseless Ebonyi people, they have all left the state, for their safety .
"They should please not return back now there is still very high tension, under the people who pretentiously speak that they are protecting our people, you can see that our problem is not only the herdsmen.
" we are still killing ourselves, we are killing police, we are burning police station, which means that the Southeast should know that our problem is not just herdsmen, that we are also problems to our selves and we enjoined leaders to rise up to condemn this because it's a little monster, that if it is encouraged can destroy all of us beyond herdsmen menace"
On the issue of Effium communal crises, Umahi said they discovered that Effium has been at peace for the past two weeks until one ambassador Paschal Oluchukwu, in sun newspaper of 9th of April, released a very wicked allegation against the security agencies and against the government of Ebonyi state,
He said that the publication resulted in fresh killings and that they had the stakeholders of Effium and Ezza Effium in their meeting and their decision was to arrest all of them and to commence charges of murder, but after their firm commitment that there will be no killings again, they decided to change their minds.
"But we have noted that the Effium people and the Ezza Effium people are are willing to return to thier homes and they are willing to embrace peace, but there are still some few elements from amongst the two sides that go to social media to dish out very wrong information and it escalate tension and the resultant effect is killings, we are apealing to security agencies to watch out and apprehend such people.
"And we declare this ambassador Oluchukwu Paschal wanted, and we decided that if he doesn't come to answer, we are to press prosecution charges against him, we've directed the commissioner for internal security and information to write to sun newspaper to reveal the identity of the man, he should come and defend the write up that resulted to fresh killings in Effium. We are determined, within the next two weeks to get the people of Effium back to thier homes" he said.