Assassination Attempt: What Ortom Said After Meeting Buhari

Three days after he escaped alleged assassination, Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has paid President Muhammadu Buhari a visit at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

President Buhari reportedly met with Ortom behind closed-doors.

THE WHISTLER reports that the meeting is the first formal engagement between President Buhari and Governor Ortom since May 14, 2019, when the governor visited the State House to “give the president an update on the security situation” in Benue and the border states of Taraba and Ebonyi.

Ortom was said to be inspecting his farm on Saturday when gunmen he claimed were herdsmen attempted to kill him.

The Benue governor said he had to run for more than 1.5KM to escape assassination by the assailants.

Speaking after his meeting with Buhari on Tuesday, Ortom told State House correspondents that the issue of insecurity affects all and sundry, and as such all hands must be on deck to address it.

“I am aware that the security challenges in our country today are not about the President or we Governors, they are about every citizen of this country so we must work together to surmount this.

“I also want Nigerians to know, especially those who are responsible for making inflammatory statements, we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder and everybody is not in doubt in Nigeria today, about the security situation, without security there can be no meaningful progress and so it is important to put heads together.

“Let’s do the things that are lawful, protect the provisions of the constitution of the Federal republic of Nigeria so that everybody will be secured, let there be equity, fairness and justice. That is what I stand for,’’ he said.

According to Ortom, his discussion with President Buhari bordered on how to address the security situation bedeviling the country.

The governor also denied claims that he was attacked by aggrieved villagers over a land dispute and not herdsmen as he earlier claimed.

Ortom further reiterated that the ban on open grazing in Benue State was not targeted at the Fulani or herdsmen.

“We cannot continue in this manner. Democracy is anchored on the rule of law that is why for some of us, you see that I have not done anything illegal including the prohibition of open grazing, which my people told me to present to the House of Assembly and eventually it was signed into law.

“That law is not targeted against any ethnic group or individual but it is meant to regulate the activities of herdsmen and farmers and I think we have very good stories to talk about this.

“Today in Benue, those who trespass against this law, who are herders, are arrested, their cattle impounded and they are prosecuted.

“Those who rustle cattle from herdsmen, we also go after them so nobody is spared; even the people in Benue, Idoma, Tiv and other ethnic groups have also been prosecuted when they contravene the provisions of the law,” he said.