Commissioner says Gov rears snails not snakes

Commissioner for Agriculture and Natural Resources in Benue, James Anbua, has debunked the rumours making the rounds that Gov Samuel Ortom is rearing snakes.

Anbua told newsmen in Makurdi on Monday, July 31, 2017 that “no single snake farm exists in the state, let alone being owned by the governor ”.

He said that some unscrupulous persons were linking the governor to the foreign snakes imported into the country and intercepted by the Nigeria Customs Service in Calabar.

The commissioner said that anything associated with snake was considered to be evil by the people of the state.

Anbua said that no Benue indigene would contemplate owning a snake farm in the state.

“Ortom does not rear snakes. He does not have a snake farm.

“What he rears are snails, grass cutters, cattle of different species, among other domestic animals,’’ he said.

He said that the Ortom’s administration had led a revolution in agriculture with numerous initiatives to make the state embody the true meaning of its status as the “Food Basket of the Nation’’.

The commissioner said that the governor has done everything possible to take agriculture to lofty heights.

He stressed that snake farming was certainly not part of the agricultural programmes of the state government, describing it as alien to the people.

Anbua said that the state government is doing its best in yam farming and other crops for processing into various agricultural value chain for export.

The government, he said, is not involved in snake farming, because it is not beneficial to the people.