On Thursday, Samuel Ortom, the governor of Benue State, charged that the president prioritised cows over human lives.
This was Ortom’s response to a previous remark made by the President’s Senior Special Assistant on Media and Publicity, Garba Shehu, and was made through his Chief Press Secretary, Nathaniel Ikyur.
In a statement released on Wednesday, the president’s media adviser outlined the efforts the Federal Government has taken to address the insecurity issue in Benue State. He expressed frustration with the outgoing governor, who he claimed was only giving security a token amount of attention while using it to advance his political ambitions in the state.
Shehu said, “Instead, Ortom stubbornly refused to engage with the detailed, holistic approach clearly spelt out by the federal government.
“He arrogantly chose his own destructive path. He blamed the Fulani for every problem that arose. He ignored numerous intelligence reports passed to him for action.
“He rejected police findings into investigations that didn’t meet his egoistical worldview. He politicised every life lost on his watch.
But Ortom likened the statement of the presidency to making animals urinate in the graves of victims of herdsmen invasion of the state, alleging that the president was indeed responsible for the killings in the state.
He said, “The Presidency has shown in this recent public statement that they have placed cows above human lives and made the animals urinate on the graves of those they massacred in Benue and elsewhere across the country. If not, they wouldn’t have gone to town to mock the slain in their graves.
“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.
“The Presidency’s statement is a reckless stab by agents of genocide against the Benue people by blaming the victims.
According to Ortom, the current pogrom in the state is a Fulani scheme to evict the locals from their properties. He also added that the atrocities were clearly documented.
“The perpetrators are also well known to local and international authorities. Through this recent posturing, everyone is now aware that the perpetrators have the backing and sympathy of the Federal Government.
Regarding the ridicule of the PDP and Ortom’s loss of his senatorial seat, the departing governor stated that this mockery has further strengthened his conviction that the enormous deployment of security personnel for the state’s elections was conceived and arranged in the presidential villa under the supervision of APC operatives.
However, Ortom said that “the 2023 elections were heavily rigged using some security operatives, money, federal might, and electronic means.” Ortom claimed that he had publicly stated his willingness to relinquish his senatorial seat for equity and justice.
” Governor Ortom’s decision not to challenge the result of the Benue North West Senatorial election in court again points to the fact that he is not a selfish and desperate politician.
While describing the presidency’s statement as the ‘height of recklessness and gross insensitivity against the people of Benue’, Ortom said he had always given full cooperation to all layers of security agencies working in the state to help curtail the menace of the Fulani killing squad displacing various communities in the state and other internal security skirmishes.
“Between 2015 and this year, Governor Ortom has constantly held security meetings and gathered intelligence to support security agencies operating in the state.
“He has however consistently pointed out that the security agencies are grossly underfunded and deserve to be better equipped and motivated to tackle insecurity in the country.
“It is therefore laughable when Shehu ignorantly tries to whip up an unfounded lie against the Governor.”
