Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has said that it is a shame for the presidency to turn around to blame him on the invasion and mass murder going on in the State by the Fulani militia has clearly shows the full endorsement of the killers by president Muhammadu Buhari led administration who has failed in its responsibility to protect lives and properties of Nigerians with Benue inclusive.
This is even as Ortom described the Presidency’s attempt to mocked him over the loss of his senatorial seat and the PDP in the Governorship has strengthened his belief that the massive deployment of security personnel for the elections in the state was planned and hatched in the presidential villa and supervised by agents of the APC.
Governor Ortom who was reacting to a media story attributed to the presidential spokesperson Garba Shehu where he said the Killings in Benue is Ortom’s fault and not the president fault has confirmed that the killings, mass murder going on in the State by the Fulani militia has the full endorsement of the presidency who has failed in its responsibility to protect lives and properties of Nigerians with Benue inclusive.
“If the Presidency can find it convenient to lay the blame of the massive killings that the Fulani have continued to perpetrate in Benue on Governor Ortom, what can it say of the massacre and kidnappings in Plateau, Southern Kaduna, Niger, Sokoto and President Buhari’s home state of Katsina among other states where the killing of innocent citizens has continued unchallenged?”
The Governor who spoke through the Chief Press Secretary Nathaniel Ikyur said what the Buhari administration has done to the people of Benue through the Fulani militants as confirmed by Shehu Garba is spit on the graves of the State compatriots mowed down needlessly by Fulani militia.
“We shall not forget these atrocities in a hurry. Benue people are well aware that Governor Ortom has been a target of the Buhari presidency since 2017 when he boldly signed a law banning open grazing of livestock in the state. The Governor has been subjected to many coordinated media attacks, probes, freezing of state accounts and other punitive measures to frustrate and cripple his administration”.
“While other states were given infrastructural loans, Benue under Governor Ortom was denied access to the funds. The same thing happened when the Benue State Government met all requirements to secure N42 billion to clear the backlog of salaries, pensions and Gratuities”
“Indeed, the Presidential spokesman’s futile attempts to twist events and history in Benue State is unfortunate and reprehensible. It shows how much he and others in that league have misled the government and Nigerian people in the last inglorious eight years”
“It is common knowledge that as the Commander-in-Chief, Buhari has empowered and emboldened the Fulani pastoralists in their expansionist agenda including killings. It is equally a known fact that the President has failed woefully in securing Nigeria, and Benue state in particular.
It is on record that Governor Samuel Ortom has repeatedly pleaded with the Buhari government to intervene in the incessant invasion of Benue State by Fulani militias. The President sadly chooses to endorse the invasion and merely asks our people to learn to accommodate their neighbours who derive pleasure in killing and dispossesing them of their ancestral lands.
What the Buhari administration has done to our people through the Fulani militants as confirmed by Shehu Garba is to spit on the graves of our compatriots mowed down needlessly by Fulani militia. We shall not forget these atrocities.
“Besides unleashing Fulani killers on our people, the Buhari government denied Benue State any meaningful project in the last eight years, including the repair of federal government roads in the state which are now death traps. We have tried in vain to find out the offense of Benue people, but we found none, except that our people are responsible, law abiding citizens”
“Let the Presidential spokesman remember that Governor Ortom is extremely grateful to the people of the State for always giving him the opportunity to serve them. As he has often quoted Psalm 34:19, “Many are the afflictions of the righteous, but the LORD delivers him out of them all.” the Governor stands for justice, equity and fairness and no amount of blackmail and impunity as orchestrated by the Buhari administration can make him to change his advocacy against injustice and oppression”
“By Garba Shehu’s latest statement, the presidency has clearly demonstrated that Governor Ortom is right when he consistently accused the APC-led federal government of complicity in the killings orchestrated against Benue people by the Fulani herdsmen as represented by Miyetti Allah Kautal, Fulani Nationality Movement, FUNAM and other Fulani socio cultural groups”
“We are tempted to conclude that President Buhari was not aware of Garba Shehu’s statement, because if the President were aware, he would not have permitted his media aide to release a statement that rather indicts him as Commander-in-Chief of Nigeria’s Armed Forces for abdicating his constitutional duty of providing security to Benue State and other parts of the country, admitting failure and opting to blame a state Governor”
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