By Sam Tyav, Makurdi
Immediate past Governor of Benue State, Chief Samuel Ortom, has accused then-President Muhammadu Buhari of engaging in actions and inactions that worsened the armed herdsmen menace in the land.
Ortom,an opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) stalwart, took the bold stance during an interactive session with newsmen in his residence in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, today.
There was as yet no word from the Buhari camp, as of press time.
Ortom, who had a strained relationship with the Buhari presidency over the issue of Abuja’s handling of insecurity in the North-Central State, pulled no punches as he called to question the role the Buhari administration played in moves to stem insecurity in his State.
In January, 2018, the remains of 73 persons killed by armed herdsmen in Guma and Logo Local Government Areas (LGAs) of the State were buried by the governor and members of the State Executive Council at a site near Industrial Layout, Naka, near the State capital. The incident was one of several acts of bloodletting that rocked the State.
He accused Buhari of refusing to implement advice to order herders to ranch their cows, a global best practice which, he noted, obtains in countries with larger number of such animals than Nigeria.
The former governor explained that such panacea, if implemented, would have brought peace, reduced clashes with farmland owners, and generated high income, as witnessed in other countries.
He pointed to countries that had adopted ranching as an animal husbandry model, saying there is no record of clashes with the wider or host communities.
Ortom expressed disappointment that rather than engage the modern solution, President Buhari, strangely, opted for a resuscitation of the 1950s cattle grazing routes which, the former governor maintained, had been visibly obfuscated by massive urban and rural structural development, rising populations and other factors.
He said the routes served the pre-independence milieu when the country’s population was about 50million, stressing that there was no way they could be useful in the modern era where Nigeria’s human population had risen to about 250million with the land not increasing.
Ortom alleged that Buhari wanted to take Nigeria from top to bottom and succeeded in doing so, but the former governor expressed confidence that President Bola Tinubu was doing his best to correct the anomalies inherited.
Rallying Nigerians to support Tinubu, Ortom said it would enable the President do even better.
He appreciated the Tinubu government for ensuring the maintenance of rule of law and repositioning of things, adding that the President in his early hours in office had announced the removal of fuel subsidy because only few Nigerians were benefitting from it.
“I commend President Bola Ahmed Tinubu for what he is doing. It is not about partisanship but commitment. He is adding value,” Ortom said.
According to him, money realized from subsidy removal was now being used for meaningful development, pointing to the issue of non-payment of salaries which, he noted, was no longer a headache for state Governors in the country.
Asked about his achievements while in office, he disclosed that he did his best to develop the state through construction of roads, rehabilitation and reconstruction of schools, building of health centers and many other projects.
On the thorny issue of non-payment of salaries which marked his administration, Ortom recalled that it had existed long before he came in as Governor.
He referred to the Second Republic administration of the now-late Aper Aku, the state’s first civilian Governor, through to the Akume and Suswam administrations, stressing that they all had problem with salaries.
He said that even when some of those administrations paid salaries at all, it was not as at when due.
On 2027, the PDP chieftain said he would support any credible candidate from Southern Nigeria from any political party for the presidency, insisting that the North should wait till 2031.
Canvassing support for Governor Hyacinth Alia, his successor in office, Ortom called on people of the state to pray for him to succeed.
