I’m Being Targeted For Elimination – Ortom

I’m Being Targeted For Elimination – Ortom

Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom issued an alert on Thursday, claiming that he is being targeted for elimination.

Ortom claimed at a press conference in Makurdi that some groups have leveled a slew of accusations against him in a desperate attempt to turn him into a target for hatred, vilification, and attacks.

“I’m being targeted for elimination,” he said.

The governor stated that a letter signed by 52 personalities was sent to President Muhammadu Buhari, and various accusations were leveled against him for the death of some pastoralists in a bomb attack at Akwanaja in Nasarawa State’s Doma Local Government Area.

He added that the group also attempted to link the killings to the Benue State Livestock Guards, claiming that the pastoralists were bombed on their way from Benue to Nasarawa after they had retrieved their cattle.

“I consider these allegations and blackmail targeted at my person and the Government of Benue State as part of a grand conspiracy by enemies of the state to eliminate me. Since 2017 when we enacted the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, I have escaped seven assassination attempts.

“Those behind the evil plots have not hidden their motive. They have made me an enemy for choosing to stand with my people and defending their rights to life and freedom. The recent utterances of some personalities such as Lamido Sanusi have revealed the true identities of those behind the sinister agenda to eliminate me. But my life is in the hands of God and only He can permit anything evil to come my way,” he added.

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Ortom, who stated that he has written a petition to be delivered to Mr. President, stated that he had no involvement in the killings and that when he learned of the bomb attack in Doma that killed pastoralists, he visited his counterpart in Nasarawa State, Governor Abdullahi Sule, and expressed his condolences to him and his people for the loss of his son and the victims of the bomb incident.

He maintained, “I must state categorically that the Benue State Government under my leadership has no hand in the Akwanaja incident. Linking me with the bomb attack in Doma, Nasarawa State is the most unfair thing anyone would do to me.

“How am I connected or responsible for what did not take place in my state? Akwanaja is in Doma local government area of Nasarawa State, so how do I account for what did not take place in my state? I am Chief Security Officer only in Benue State.”

The governor also cleared the Livestock Guards of the accusations, while also revealing that they (the Guards) have become targets of armed men, with many of them killed in cold blood despite legitimately enforcing the grazing law.

He emphasized that the law was enacted as a result of ongoing attacks on Benue people that predated his administration, from 2009 to 2011, when the attacks took on a dreadful dimension, with widespread killings, injuries, and displacement of farmers from their ancestral homes.

“Benue State came under attack nearly 50 times before the law was enacted. My predecessor, Senator Gabriel Suswam, was nearly killed in 2014 at Uikpam on his way to Torkula village in Guma local government area to see the damage caused in the community.

“When I was voted as Governor in 2015, my people who are predominantly farmers requested for a policy that would not only end hostilities and attacks on them by nomadic herdsmen, but would also allow both parties to peacefully coexist.

“As a result, the State Executive Council sent a bill to the State House of Assembly and the “Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill” was passed by the House of Assembly on 4th May, 2017 after public hearings were held in the three Senatorial Districts of the state,” he further explained.

Ortom stated that the armed attacks on his people in recent years had resulted in a devastating humanitarian crisis that had resulted in the deaths of over 6,000 Benue people and the displacement of about two million others, with many of them living in Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, and that his administration would not be intimidated into repealing the law.

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