Buhari Cannot Sit In Abuja And Expect Me To Do Nothing About Killings In Benue – Ortom

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has said that he would not watch idly while people of the state are killed daily by marauding herdsmen.

Ortom was responding to President Muhammadu Buhari’s senior media assistant, Garba Shehu, who recently said that he belongs to the class of politicians who offer excuses and “blame others for problems they have either not solved or have themselves created”.

The Benue governor and aides of President Buhari have been engaged in a verbal war in the last one week over an interview the governor granted to Arise Television where he accused the Buhari-led All Progressive Congress government of ruining Nigeria and subjecting the citizens to untold hardship.

Shehu had in response to Ortom’s interview said “Nigeria has had enough of failed politicians who blame others as a diversion for their inability to improve citizens’ lives.”

But reacting on Friday, Ortom, who spoke through the Benue State Commissioner for Information, Michael Inalegwu, faulted Shehu for failing “make any reference to security in spite of facts and figures reeled out by the governor to prove the despicable deterioration of the security situation in the country and Benue State.”

Speaking at a press conference in Makurdi, Inalegwu also accused the APC-led administration of creating banditry in the country.

He said, “APC blames others for the problem that they have either not solved or have themselves created which is wrong. Since Governor Samuel Ortom assumed leadership of the state, he has been solving problems and not creating any.

“The people that created problems for Nigerians are Mallam Shehu’s principal and other persons working with him, one of the governors from the north disclosed that the bandits were brought in from neighbouring countries to help them in the 2023 elections.”

On Shehu’s statement that Ortom offers only excuses without solution, the commissioner said the Benue governor was the first to sign the anti-open grazing law with a view to solving the herders/farmers crisis in the state.

“For statistical reasons, I must point out that before Governor Ortom brought the herdsmen crisis to an end with the enactment of the anti-open grazing law, Agatu local government alone lost over 3,920 persons to the various herders’ attacks on our villages.

“I will make available the village by village statistics of the killings. That is just one Local Government Area alone. And somebody will sit in Abuja to question why the Governor is crying daily.

“This is outside those killed, maimed, raped and sacked from their ancestral homes in 20 other LGAs of the state,” Inalegwu submitted.