Four days to the presidential and national assembly elections, the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom has disclosed that he will not mind sacrificing his senatorial ambition for the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi to emerge winner in the forthcoming elections.
Governor Ortom who made this known when he hosted Igbo community assembly in Benue State at government house, Makurdi said, “I have gone round, and my people have accepted that they will vote for me, but if I’m to sacrifice my senatorial ambition for Peter Obi to win, so shall it be,”
Ortom who is a member of the PDP was reacting to the possibility of being sanctioned by the PDP national leadership for working against the party and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar.
The governor who urged Igbo in the country to seize the opportunity to work for the election of Peter Obi as Nigeria’s next president saying, Obi matter is not about APC, PDP or whatever, it is about Nigeria.
He further told the Igbo leaders, “You are many. You have the population and thank God that what is unfolding, Peter Obi is someone that is not bonded by ethnicity and that is why when I hear some prominent Igbo personalities castigating Peter Obi for contesting election, I feel sad.”
He asked, “is it not you Igbos that are lamenting that you have been marginalized since after the war? An opportunity has come today and you are still complaining? What do you want? What are you looking for? What do you want? The whole country North, South, East and West are saying that Peter Obi and you hear some people saying we don’t want it ‘haba’ those people should be outcast,” the governor stated.
The governor lauded the Igbo for their enormous contributions towards socio-cultural, economic and political development, stating that their economic models of empowering younger generations was unequalled.
Earlier, the president-general of Igbo Community Assembly, Engr. Friday Anigor, extolled Ortom for providing a conducive environment for Igbo in the state to do their commerce unhindered.
