By Sam Tyav, Makurdi
Following Nasarawa State governor Abdullahi Sule’s demand for apology and retraction of comments by a university don, Professor Zacharys Gundu,who had stated that the state was a launchpad for terrorists killing Benue State indigenes, the latter has vowed to meet the governor in court.
Professor Gundu, who is the Vice Chancellor (VC), University of Mkar in Benue State, restated that he was prepared to meet Governor Sule in court.
Benue and Nasarawa States are contiguous and were one bloc when both were part of the defunct Benue-Plateau State, until 1976 when the then Federal Military Government of the now-late Gen. Murtala Muhammad split it into separate Benue and Plateau States.
Further state creation exercises down the road by subsequent military regimes saw the emergence of Nasarawa State.
Trouble started between the governor and the VC when the latter, a Professor of Archeology, spoke at a town hall meeting organised by News Central Television on insecurity challenges in North-Central Nigeria.
Apparently angered by Professor Gundu’s comments, Gov. Sule, through his lawyer, Dr. Ahmed Raji, SAN, in a letter dated July 22, 2025 demanded a retraction and apology from Gundu.
He claimed that the comments caused him quantifiable damage and injured his reputation in the eyes and minds of right thinking persons in the society.
But responding,in a letter too, Professor Gundu, through his Counsel, Professor Sabastine Hon SAN, dismissed the demand for retraction and apology, insisting that he spoke the truth and could not under any guise comply with the governor’s demands.
Gundu maintained that the volume of alleged evidence at his disposal were massive enough to establish “beyond all shadow doubt” that the murderous Fulani herdsmen attacking Benue State on several fronts were allegedly always housed in Nasarawa State by some successive leaders of Nasarawa State.
He assured that he would release the pieces of evidence when they meet in court.
Hon stated that “our client’s predecessor Tanko Al- Makura once claimed that the bandits operating in and from Nasarawa State were “hunters”, when there are no hunting forests or ranges in Nasarawa State.”
Professor Hon told Gov. Sule’s counsel that between 2020 and 2025, the governor had consistently raised alarm over the “influx of murderous bandits into Nasarawa State” even as the lawyer annexed and attached a Vanguard Newspaper report of August 19, 2020 wherein Gov. Sule was quoted as saying that the migrating bandits were those displaced from elsewhere in Nigeria and from Mangu in crises-torn lateau State.
Hon also made reference to a Channels TV broadcast of January 20, 2021 where Gov. Sule reportedly told the late President Mohammadu Buhari that Boko Haram terrorists had entered his State in large numbers, adding that Sule was quoted as saying that the terrorists belonged to the Darussalam Sect which had been dislodged from neighbouring Niger State.
Gundu’s counsel attached no fewer that eight annexures in the letter, alleging that Gov. Sule was not free from Professor Gundu’s accusations and reminded Dr. Raji of what Sule told Channels TV in June 2025 after the recent Yelwata massacre that Nasarawa State has only a few Fulani herdsmen and the state could not have been harbouring the large number of those murderers who moved to Benue to kill, maim and return to Nasarawa.
To Hon, the position contrasted with Gov. Sule’s previously stated one.
He advised Gov. Sule’s counsel to inquire from his client whether at any point since announcing such “influx of herdsmen” he has also announced “expulsion” or “voluntary migration” out of Nasarawa State of those same criminal elements.
Hon also reminded Raji that Gov. Sule may know that allegations of such nature did not start with Prof. Gundu, pointing out that on the same Channels TV interview in 2025, the governor reportedly stated that the immediate past Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, was no longer on talking terms with the former Governor of Nasarawa State,Tanko Al- Makura on account of this same issue.
Professor Gundu, the lawyer insisted, stood his ground for accusing the governor.
