RUGA: Presidency Attacks Ortom

The Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu has taken a dig at the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom over the Ruga controversy.

Mr. Shehu said Ortom is using the Ruga issue to divert attention from his failure.

The presidential spokesman disclosed this on The News at 10 on Channels Television on Monday.

He said, “One thing I will tell you is that the most outspoken critic of this policy, who is the governor of Benue State, is not invited and is not a part of it (Ruga). He has no business meddling in this affair and if he has work to do, let him stay on his job and do it.”

Shehu said those ruling Benue State got to power by fuelling ethnic division and this has become the only way of diverting attention of the people.

“One thing I can tell you is that Benue is absolutely absent from this. They have not applied and they have not been invited. But the thing is that the nature of politics in that place; people have used this ethnicity to get to power. They need it in order to stay in power because they have no answers to the problem of their people.”

Recall that Ortom a few days ago kicked against Ruga settlements proposed by the Federal Government.

Immediate past Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Audu Ogbeh had On May 21, 2019 announced that Buhari had approved the Ruga settlement initiative earlier in the same month.

“Just 10 days ago, President Muhammadu Buhari approved a programme called the Ruga settlement. We are going to build settlements where herders will live, grow their cattle and produce milk. The milk will be bought by a milking parlour thus preventing their wives from moving around with milk. This is especially to avert any conflict between the herders and the farmers,” Ogbeh reportedly stated.