Jan 27, 2018: The Benue State Working Committee of the All Progressives Congress, APC, has voted for the immediate resignation of the Minister of Defence, Colonel Muhammad Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) from office.

It also called on the minister to tender an unreserved apology to the good people of the state for linking recent massacre of 73 innocent people by Fulani herdsmen to the promulgation of the anti-open grazing laws and blockade of grazing routes.

The call for the resignation of the minister came barely a day after Governor Samuel Ortom said President Muhammadu Buhari is surrounded by a wrong set of people that cannot give him useful advice that would take the nation out of the woods with the Defence Minister inclusive.

The governor also maintained that allowing the minister to continue to remain in power was a clear indication that the solution to the security crisis confronting the country in not in sight, and that the position of the minister on the killings was tantamount to “dancing on the graves of those who were murdered in the state on January 1”.

The APC’s highest body in the state in a statement by the chairman, Hon. Abba Yaro expressed disgust over what it termed the frivolous comment credited to the “supposed honourable minister” and described the statement as a flatly ridiculous absurdity, and the highest level of public disgrace to democracy and the Nigerian populace”.

The minister’s comment, the party leadership said is a “ploy to truncate the party’s victory in the 2019 general election, stressing that the utterances clearly shows he has been contracted by the opposition to work against the APC.

Yaro disclosed that the utterance by the minister signalled a lucid display of incontestable lack of the required sensibility and capacity to serve as Defence Minister in a country of over 180 million people with over 300 ethnic nationalities.

“By this singular utterance, the Minister of Defence, Col. Muhammad Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) has inarguably displayed incontestable lack of the required sensibility and capacity to serve as Defence Minister in a country of over 180 million people with over 300 ethnic nationalities”.

“While we are still bewildered if the said statement truly emanated from the Zamfara born retired Military Colonel serving as our ‘supposed Defence Minister’, we consider this statement as a flatly ridiculous absurdity, and the highest level of public disgrace to democracy and the Nigerian populace”.

“We have therefore been constrained to believe that Mr. Mansur is a component unit of the perceived conspiracy against the good and hospitably peace loving people of Benue State”.

The APC’s helmsman maintained that Benue State being an integral part of the country, and as a state that gave President Muhammadu Buhari an edge in the 2015 general elections, it is pained by the killing of innocent people who were given a mass burial and as such “demand that Col. Mansur Dan Ali (rtd) resigns his position as Nigeria’s Defence Minister immediately and tender an unreserved apology to the good people of Benue State and the country at large”.

“As a founding member and major stakeholder in our ruling party, the APC, we are forced to question Col. Mansur’s real motive and demand that he publicly explains to the party leadership why we should not consider his reckless utterances as a deliberate ploy to truncate the party’s victory in the 2019 general election. Through his statement, as an insider, Mansur appears to have been contracted by the opposition to work against the APC”.

“In as much as we would not dignify Col. Mansur with obnoxious affronts, we would again want to inform him that he is not just an ingrate, but an unrepentant pathological opportunist who was in his farm working for the PDP when many of us toiled the nooks and crannies of this country to ensure victory for President Muhammadu Buhari in the election that brought him (Buhari) to power through which he (Mansur) is one of the biggest beneficiaries”.

“As someone who read Photography in the polytechnic and later took to animal husbandry with flocks of cows to his credit in his Zamfara country home, we urge our President, Muhammadu Buhari GCFR, to aid Col. Mansur’s timely resignation and return him to his farm with a Xenon HD Camera to continue taking snapshots of his flock of herds back home”.

“Minister Mansur apparently is one of those who are working against the unity of Nigeria and must be stopped now before he and others with such parochial, hateful, divisive and repulsive tendencies plunge the country into deeper crisis”.

The party reaffirmed its strong support for Governor Ortom’s stance on ranching and pledged its commitment towards ensuring the success of the anti-open grazing prohibition law.