The immediate previous governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, encouraged his successor, Governor Hyacinth Alia, on Sunday to avoid playing games and instead follow the security blueprint that President Bola Tinubu personally designed for him.
Ortom said this in a statement issued by his aide, Terver Akase, and distributed to journalists in Makurdi.
The former governor was replying to Alia, who made a reference to his administration during a television interview with Dickson Tarkighir, a member of the House of Representatives from Makurdi/Guma federal district, over the weekend.
Alia through his media aide, Kula Tersoo had said, ”Under Ortom’s watch, Benue State recorded the highest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in its history, with over 4 million people displaced from their ancestral homes.
“This figure underscores the failure of reactive rhetoric without strategic support for security architecture.”
Clarifying this, the former governor stated that the same 1.5 million IDPs data that Governor Alia received in 2023 is still being used today.
Ortom asked his predecessor and his team to cease playing games with the state’s insecurity issue, claiming, “People are being killed like animals by armed herders.”
The statement partly read, Trying to minimise the magnitude of the attacks by concealing casualty figures and the number of displaced persons and making the attacks appear as mere communal clashes or skirmishes will not help solve the problem.
“Since the killing of innocent Benue people by armed herders intensified under Alia, the governor has peddled varying narratives regarding the attacks.
“At one point, he says those on a killing spree in the state are foreigners and not Nigerians.
”At another instance, he claims the killings are reprisals because, according to him, Benue people rustled Fulani cows and were selling them in wheelbarrows.
“In yet another case, the governor blames those he brands as ‘Abuja politicians’ as sponsors of the killings. His latest accusation was against clergymen in the state, whom he tagged as ‘religious bandits’.
”This clearly indicates that the governor either has no clue about what the security situation is or is deliberately trying to mislead the public.
“I advise Governor Alia to adopt the security roadmap that President Bola Tinubu personally crafted for him when the president visited the state.
“It has been five days since the president visited and made very useful recommendations on addressing insecurity in the state, but the governor has apparently yet to begin implementing any of the recommendations.”
Ortom further suggested that in order to combat the insecurity that is destroying sections of Benue State, the governor should empower the 23 local governments to assume ownership of their resources, allowing them to properly mobilise security in their domains while simultaneously providing development for their people.
“Fortunately, allocations to the local governments, similar to those of the state government, have increased by 400% since the fuel subsidy was removed by Mr President in 2023 and the Supreme Court gave a landmark judgement granting full financial autonomy for local governments.
”The governor should obey the Supreme Court judgement and let the councils run their affairs.
“The 23 local governments have been lamenting; the Benue State House of Assembly has also passed resolutions repeatedly urging Governor Alia to allow local governments to control their resources, but sadly, all such pleas and interventions have fallen on deaf ears,” Ortom said.
