Governor Samuel Ortom on Thursday delivered a clap back to the Presidency when he alleged that the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari denied the people of Benue State any meaningful project in the last eight years.
“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,” he said.
Ortom also said the President failed to secure the people of the North Central state against perpetual killings by herdsmen because as Benue governor, he signed a law banning open grazing of livestock in the state in 2017.
On his failed senatorial bid, the governor said by not going to court to challenge the outcome of the poll, he showed that he is not desperate.
Ortom’s response is coming less than 24 hours after presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu knocked him over the festering insecurity in the state.
Shehu had claimed that Ortom ignored numerous intelligence reports passed to him for action. The presidential spokesman also said the governor rejected police findings into investigations that didn’t meet his “egotistical worldview” even as he “politicised every life lost on his watch”.
However, in a statement on Thursday by his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur, Ortom said, “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 gratuity.”
The governor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) also accused the President and his ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of supporting killer herdsmen by failing to protect the people.
“The Presidency’s statement is a reckless stab by agents of genocide against the Benue people by blaming the victims.
“It is an insult to Benue people including those killed and butchered children, the maimed, raped, and abused women, and the over two million people living under squalid conditions in Nigeria’s largest Internally Displaced Camps in the state.”
