The Governor of Nasarawa State, Tanko Al-Makura, said on Tuesday the state is not at war with Benue State.
The governor stated this during a peace meeting between the Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris and stakeholders from Benue and Nasarawa States.
The Benue State delegation was led by the Deputy Governor of the state, Engr. Benson Abounu, while the Nasarawa delegation was led by the Special Adviser to the Governor on Security Matters, Dr. Muhammad Adeka.
It was the second meeting put together by the IGP as part of measures to end the crisis in both states.
The first meeting was scheduled for January 15 but was stalled due to the absence of governors of both states.
Speaking at the reconciliation meeting, Al-Makura, who was represented by Dr. Adeka, said: “I don’t want people to leave here with the notion that the government or the people of both states are at war because of the word “peace and reconciliation” that was used to describe the meeting.
“Nasarawa State does not have any problem of any kind with the people of Benue State.”
The governor also said he was willing to make available to Benue State its conflict resolution mechanism.
He added: “We have our conflict resolution mechanism which has helped our state for long and we are here willingly to make it available to our counterparts in Benue State to resolve whatever skirmishes that must have taken place in the past few months.”
“The only thing that concerns us is the ripple effect of the open grazing prohibition law which the government and people of Nasarawa State are not in a position to contradict what the people of Benue want.
“We are not against the law but the ripple effect has affected us severely. But it is the policy of the government of Nasarawa State not to chase the people away. All those running away from the anti-grazing law, being Nigerians, our government has done everything to accommodate them.”