‘We miss you’: Benue displaced person apologizes to Ortom

A displaced person living in one of the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in Benue State has written an emotional open letter to the immediate past Governor of the state, Chief Samuel Ortom, apologizing for what he described as the people’s failure to support him and lamenting worsening conditions in the camps since he left office.

The letter, dated January 17, 2026, was authored by Mr. Bernard Dewua, who said he was writing “from the floor of an IDP camp” and speaking on behalf of displaced persons across the state.

In the letter, Dewua said IDPs in Benue deeply miss Ortom, not because of his former position, but because of what he described as the empathy and attention his administration showed to displaced communities.

According to him, conditions in IDP camps have deteriorated since the change of government, with displaced persons facing neglect in healthcare, feeding and general welfare. He alleged that sick children lack access to medicines, pregnant women struggle to access basic maternal care, and hunger has become widespread in the camps.

“The attention we once received has vanished,” the letter stated, adding that feeding arrangements and welfare support that existed in the past are no longer in place.

Dewua further noted that the number of IDPs in Benue State continues to rise, claiming that more communities are being attacked and overrun, forcing additional residents to flee their ancestral homes. He alleged that attacks by armed Fulani herders have not abated and that farming communities have been displaced, leaving farmlands abandoned and sources of livelihood destroyed.

The displaced person recalled Ortom’s frequent visits to IDP camps while in office and praised the former governor for what he described as courage in openly speaking against attacks and land occupation, even when it was politically costly.

“He stood with us when others chose silence,” Dewua wrote, crediting Ortom with taking the plight of Benue people to national and international platforms.

In a significant part of the letter, the IDP apologized to Ortom on behalf of displaced persons, alleging that misinformation and propaganda caused many to turn against the former governor during his tenure.

“We abandoned you when you needed us the most,” the letter said, asking the former governor for forgiveness.

The letter reads:

“Your Excellency,
Chief Samuel Ortom,
Immediate Past Governor of Benue State
17th January, 2026

WE APOLOGIZE TO YOU SIR. WE MISS YOU

Sir,

I write this letter not from the comfort of a home, but from the floor of an IDP camp in Benue State, one of the many camps that have become our reluctant refuge. I write with a heavy heart, trembling hands, and eyes clouded with memories of what once was and what ought to be.

Your Excellency, we the displaced people of Benue State, miss you deeply and painfully sir. We miss you not because you held power, but because you held us close to your heart.

Since you left office, sir, silence has wrapped itself around our suffering. Neglect has become our daily companion. The attention we once received has vanished like smoke in harmattan air. Our health needs are unattended to. Sick children cry through the night without medicine. Pregnant women pray to survive childbirth in camps that were never meant for human dignity. Hunger stares us in the face; feeding arrangements that once gave us hope are now stories we tell new arrivals to the camp, stories of a better yesterday.

And the camps are no longer shrinking; they are swelling. Every week, more of our brothers and sisters arrive with nothing but the clothes on their backs and tales of horror in their mouths. More communities have fallen. More of our ancestral lands have been taken over. The Fulani herders’ attacks have not ceased; if anything, they have worsened. Our villages are empty. Our farms are silent. Our yam barns are ashes. Our rivers, once sources of life, now flow past abandoned homes.

Sir, we no longer know when or if we will return home. Our means of livelihood have been destroyed. Farming was our pride; now it is our pain. The soil that fed us has been forcefully separated from us. We have become strangers on our own land, refugees in the state our forefathers defended with sweat and blood.
This is why we remember you with tears and nostalgia, Your Excellency.

We remember how you often came to the camps, not as a distant governor, but as a brother who felt our pain. We remember how you stood in the trenches with us when it was unpopular to do so. When others chose silence or denial, you chose to speak. When others looked away, you looked the invaders in the face and said, “Enough is enough.” You defended Benue people openly. You defended us boldly. You carried our burden on your shoulders and took our cry to the national snd international stages, even when it cost you politically.

You did everything to make us happy and secure in our ancestral homelands, but we did not appreciate you in return. We abandoned you when you needed us the most. Lies were manufactured to tarnish your reputation and we bought cheaply into those lies and betrayed you. We are deeply sorry, Your Excellency sir. Please forgive us.

Under your watch sir, we felt seen. We felt heard. We felt protected, if not by arms, then by courage and compassion. You did not pretend that our suffering was exaggerated. You did not reduce our blood to statistics. You stood firm against the occupation of Benue lands by armed Fulani pastoralists and refused to mortgage our future for temporary peace.
Today, that courage feels absent. That empathy feels lost. That sense of urgency is missing.

So we ask, with broken voices and aching hearts: when will Benue State get another Samuel Ortom?
When will Benue have another leader who feels the pain of displaced people as his own pain?
When will we have another governor who will stand between us and annihilation, regardless of whose toes are stepped on?
When will leadership return to the camps, not for photo opportunities, but with genuine concern, action, and commitment?

Sir, this letter is not written to incite hatred. It is written to awaken conscience. It is a cry from the margins. It is the voice of a people slowly fading from public attention but not from suffering.

We miss you, Chief Samuel Ortom.
We miss your voice.
We miss your courage.
We miss your presence in our darkest hours.

Above all, we miss the feeling that someone, somewhere in power, truly cared whether we lived or died.

Yours in pain,

Bernard Dewua
A Displaced Person from an IDP Camp in Benue State”

Chief Samuel Ortom was yet to publicly respond to the letter at the time of filing this report.