By Onjefu Okidu
Since his governorship days, the former Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has been well known for his antics of pitching bloodletting in the state to cultivate cheap blackmail and political space. Accordingly, his voice has grown to the highest pitch since he left power in May 2023, recklessly aiming at Governor Hyacinth Alia’s government. With the recent spate of killings in the state, he has stepped up his game time and again! The good thing is that an overwhelming people of Benue State already know that Ortom’s wolf-crying over killings in the state simply signposts, as usual, his use of bloodletting to preserve his political purposes and goals. The coming of Alia has further opened their eyes to the hitherto unseen.
Nevertheless, this insidious predisposition of former Governor Ortom has increased the burden of incumbent Governor Alia, who has been devoting sincere attention to uprooting the killings from the state’s aesthetic landscape. The politics of the state have been lately shaped by the clashes between these two forces of evil and good. The battlefields are in-person events in the state and the media space. The arsenal bearers are often the Chief Press Secretaries of the former and incumbent governors - Terver Akase and Tersoo Kula.
Every time Ortom opened his mouth to speak in public either directly or indirectly through his arsenal bearer, Terver Akase, he usually removed all doubts about his motive of pitching the killings in the state to gain cheap blackmail and political space. Take his latest outburst through Akase, for example. Comparing his administration with that of Alia, the former Governor wildly and scathly accused the Alia government of concealing mass burial of victims of herdsmen attacks. He further berated the government: “the difference between my administration and Alia’s is that I stood against injustice and vigorously opposed the pastoralists agenda aimed at occupying Benue lands, while Alia seems to downplay the ongoing attacks on Benue communities … Despite threats to my life and pressure from the then Federal Government, I remained resolute in advocating against open grazing and promoting ranching. This led to the enactment of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranch Establishment Law in Benue State, a law that has received widespread acclaim across the country.”
Dr Onjefu Okidu: author of the story
In profound and soothing words, Tersoo Kula, Chief Press Secretary to Governor Alia evacuated Ortom’s submissions by reiterating Governor Alia’s commitment to addressing the lingering security challenges via practical and effective solutions which are gradually paying off sustainably. To be fair to Governor Alia, social analysts have continued to call out what they see as yet another instance of “Ortomatic” games driving former Governor Ortom to distract, disrupt and destroy the government of the day. Perhaps, nothing should be more encouraging to the Benue people than the clear messages conveyed again and again by the Governor that his government is sincere and that all Benue people should key into his Carte Blanche irrespective of differences to upstage the multi-dimensional evil plaguing the state.
The brutal truth is that the Alia government like all governments has its inadequacies or flaws, but it would be grossly ridiculous for Ortom to compare his government to that of Alia. It would be like comparing darkness to light. The Ortom government embodied corruption, mismanagement, lack of strategic vision, and refusal (not failure) to attend to simple statutory provisions such as payment of salary, pension, and meeting other basic statutory obligations while Alia’s government beyond the ongoing massive infrastructural expansion in the state embodies will, courage and resilience of good leadership which sees the meeting of the basic statutory entitlements of the people as something that is already given! Nobody thought Benue had money until Fr. Alia showed up with sincere efforts.
The efforts have continued to showcase Governor Alia’s capacity and capability to maintain internal peace and even keep peace beyond Benue’s borders. The Holy Bible constructs the logic in a simpler thesis: “Whoever can be trusted with small things can also be trusted with big things. Whoever is dishonest in small things will be dishonest in big things too.” If Ortom failed in something as given as attending to workers’ salaries and pensions, how much more a weighty responsibility like maintaining peace in the state? For Alia, it is the complete opposite! If in doubt, survey Benue civil servants and residents. It is usually tearing to observe that, whenever Benue civil servants and pensioners gather in tatters, they reflect pathetically about the thousands of their colleagues who had died miserably as a result of non-payment of salaries and pensions during Ortom’s time in addition to the thousands who have lost their lives to the staggering insecurity in the state.
Many post-mortems have been written on Ortom’s controversial anti-grazing law. And the consensus is that, after the passing of the law, the conflicts and killings escalated. The ensuing wave of bloodshed was a major factor behind the PDP’s crushing defeat in 2023. Actually, after the passing of the law, the situation grew worse. The law, far from helping the situation, instead deepened the conflicts and killings, raising serious questions about Ortom’s sincerity, capacity and capability. In fact, it was rumored in some quarters that Ortom was instigating the conflicts and killings to justify his performance in his quest to cover political mileage. It was also argued in some other quarters that it was a sheer lack of capacity and capability. There were so many insinuations, unanswered questions, and suspicions!
Whatever, for those who have eyes to see and ears to hear, far more than truth, Ortom had made the Benue people and generality of Nigerians better acquainted with scathing political and ethnic sentiments on television, radio, and newspaper pages than solving the problem – Oh, Fulani herdsmen are killing my people, Buhari is encouraging his people to take over our land! Fulani has done this, Fulani has done that! It should be made very clear that in as much as the conflicts and killings are attributable to open grazing, other internal nefarious forces have grown within the state that should inform effective solutions beyond focusing solely on Fulani herdsmen. The fact of the matter is that Ortom’s scathing outbursts now and again of Fulani do this or that can never solve the problem without serious internal scrutiny and introspection among the Benue people.
His outright refusal to acknowledge this fact has led to his continuous foggy thinking that has always threatened common sense. Although, common sense is not so common! The common sense is not the absolution of the Fulani herdsmen, far from it, but the recognition that some members of Benue communities as much as Fulani herdsmen are culpable. Apparently, the refusal of Ortom to recognize this and deal with the state’s security challenges during his eight years in office represented a clear attack on moral expectations, and a gross disrespect for the creator of the universe.
Reduced to essentials, rather than focusing his energies on throwing Alia’s corrective government under the bus, Ortom should be humble enough to accept the fact that he failed the Benue people on virtually all fronts as a Governor. Sector to sector, what Alia is doing right now is what Ortom had refused to do or done wrong during his deeply insensitive and unserious time. And the generality of the Benue people are very happy. At a time like this when all societies in the universe are organizing, the last thing Benue needs now is disruption and distraction. Indeed, if Ortom wants to dissipate his inimical energies anywhere, it shouldn’t be Benue State, his state. Even then, it’s pretty too late now to the game!
The simple truth is that, Ortom has to think seriously about raising his standards as a human being from looking at all issues through the prism of partisan politics and selfishness to serving humanity. In a sensible measure, this aligns very much with Horace Mann’s admonition that, “we should all be ashamed to die until we have won some victory for humanity.” What we are talking about here is human lives. People are dying, and Ortom should hear the clear call to shelve the leading of the devil by keying into Governor Alia’s Carte Blanche. As the Governor has suggested again and again, the Benue people must come together as one to wipe out this hydra-headed creature supposedly called herders-farmers conflicts and killings. For God’s sake, all and sundry should take advantage of the Governor’s Carte Blanche to find a lasting solution to the bloodletting this Valentine’s season. The choice and the love given will not only save the lives of the generality of the Benue people but also that of Ortom and others like him who have refused to do the right thing to make a better day for Benue State, the food basket of our great country Nigeria. Great valentine to you’ll!!
...Dr Onjefu Okidu writes from Ilorin. He can be reached through his E-mail and phone: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; +2348036636139. NNL.
