Lai Mohammed lied over my comment on Boko Haram in Benue/Nasarawa borders – Gov Sule

The Nasarawa State Government has replied the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed, over his recent claim that the state Govenro, Abdullahi Sule told him there are no Boko Haram insurgents in Benue/Nasarawa border.

Sule, who addressed State House correspondents in Abuja after meeting Buhari, bared his mind without reservation on the havoc Boko Haram terrorists are wreaking in the border communities of Benue and Nasarawa. Sule specifically said he visited the president to seek his intervention because the state was currently witnessing security challenges.

“The terrorists had been dislodged from Toto, where they initially camped, but have regrouped at the Nasarawa/Benue border from where they now launch attacks on residents,” Sule told journalists.

Three days after governor Sule’s visit to the State House in Abuja, the Minister of Information and Culture, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, at a press briefing countered the report published in various media on governor Sule’s statement on the regrouping of Boko Haram resurgence in the Nasarawa Benue border. Mohammed said governor Sule refuted the report while speaking with him over the issue.

Mohammed, who briefed the media on Monday in Abuja on the progress made by the Federal Government in the war against terrorism and banditry, said the governor claimed he was quoted out of context.

“I was also concerned over this and I called the governor and asked him,” Mohammed said. “But he said it was a case of being quoted out of context. He said what he told the media was that he went to see the president, first, to wish him Happy New Year and to thank him for the Armed Forces he had sent to Nasarawa State to dislodge the bandits who were trying to behave like Boko Haram.

“Thirdly, to thank the President for providing an alternative route between Nasarawa State and Abuja. He said it was a clear case of being quoted out of context.”

Responding, however, state’s Commissioner for Information, Mr. Dogo Shammah, affirmed that Governor Sule was quoted verbatim and not quoted out of context as Mohammed had alleged.

According to Shammah; “What the governor told the journalists in Abuja is happening is in Nasarawa State. That was exactly what he said. But if for any reason the minister has anything contrary, we don’t know. But as a government, that was the position we took so that we can safeguard life and property. If there is a different meaning to it, we don’t know.”