By Ayo Kehinde
Reeling from the impact of the sudden defection of its members in the Senate and House of Representatives to the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, the PDP, the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, and Chairman, Adams Oshiomhole has turned its back on Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State who recently defected to the PDP, calling him an electoral liability.
Oshiomhole, who had boasted that he would not loose sleep over the defection of its members and pledged to do all in his powers to restrain the governor, stating that he cannot go back to the ‘People Deceiving People Party’, a hand-down reference to the PDP, has made a U-turn on the governor after holding a meeting with party leaders in the state.
He said, “From the point of view of our leaders in Benue State, their position was clear. They believed that fielding Governor Ortom on the APC platform in the 2019 governorship election could only lead to electoral defeat for a number of reasons. They reminded us that in spite of the allocations accruing to the state and in spite of the bailout, amounting to over N20bn, which they had received in two installments of N10bn each, and in addition to the huge sums of money that the state collected from the Paris Club Refund, Governor Ortom has not, and is not paying salaries to workers as and when due.”
According to Oshiomhole, the party leaders in the state alleged that some of those who had been arrested over killings were associated with the governor.
He said, “For any man of honour, if an appointee of government is involved in heinous crimes, including killing,that should be enough for a governor to worry.
“Instead, Governor Ortom played up the ethnic dimension of criminality, whereas in truth, some of those who have been killed were not killed by Muslims; they were killed by Christians of Benue State origin, including those he employed.
“So, Ortom’s incapacity to manage it and even his willingness to seek to make political capital of the death of the Benue people is most unfortunate because I believe that even in politics, there should be a level of morality.”
Promptly, the governor who responded through his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akasee, expressed surprise at the sudden turn of event, wondering how the party National Chairman, Oshiomhole, who had described him as “a star of the APC”, and had pledged to do all in his powers to make him remain in the ruling party, would use such strong words to fault his action.
He said, “If Oshiomhole was a man of honour, he would have held on to his words when he described Governor Ortom as a star of the party. Governor Ortom did an amnesty programme, where thousands of youths were disarmed and over 1,000 arms were recovered.
“The same governor cannot turn round and arm youths to kill the people. Benue State has accused the Miyetti Allah group of the killings in Benue, but the APC-led government has not deemed it fit to invite those people for questioning.”
