Ortom: The last man standing

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom is a man who does not mince words or pretend about what he believes to be the right thing. He fears God but not man. He only respects those who earn his respect. Where other men of his ilk would have quaked and crumbled to the ground in piteous lamentation, he stands firmly and resolute and shows the inner strength of a man of purpose and conviction who would do everything in his power to give his people direction.

 

Ortom is indeed the last man standing for Benue people and other Nigerians! He has on several occasions spoken truth to power! He has been vilified, blackmailed and even marked for elimination. But the Guma-born astute politician and philanthropist has refused to buckle under the heavy weight of Presidential threats and attacks. Some of his own people who are apologists of the Presidency use his name to curry favours at the Villa. They tag him as the only enemy of Fulani.

 

Governor Ortom’s only offense is enacting the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law in 2017 and ensuring its full enforcement since then. Ortom’s insistence that anyone who rears cattle in Benue must do so in ranches and in accordance with the state law on animal husbandry has drawn the ire of the Fulani oligarchs whose cows know nothing else than encroaching on farmlands and destroying people’s property.

 

He has repeatedly put the blame of the carnage ongoing in parts of the country as perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen squarely on the feet of the Presidency. He faults the Presidency’s handling of the crisis, particularly its kid gloves treatment of Fulani terrorists. Governor Ortom has fearlessly challenged the Presidency to declare armed Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and have them arrested, the same way agitators such as Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho have been treated.

 

Curiously, the Presidency has never taken Ortom on any of the issues he has been raising. Instead, they sponsor mercenaries to write hurtful things against the Governor. The Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, Senator George Akume recently displayed the most shameful act and the highest level of insensitivity when he held a press conference in Abuja to castigate Governor Ortom and thereafter rode on armoured vehicles to Makurdi like one who was heading to war. The Internally Displaced People in the Abagena IDP camp couldn’t bear the insult from Akume who had not visited any of the camps since 2017 only to return in a motorcade of armoured vehicles. They fetched stones and rotten tomatoes and pelted the Minister’s convoy. That was the shame! Again, Ortom won!

 

Samuel Ortom has been a blend and brand of courage, steadfastness, justice, truth and forthrightness. Even when he couldn’t pay salaries as a result of the recession Nigeria plunged into, he explained to his people that the circumstances were beyond his administration. He has kept his promise to commence regular payment of salaries from January 2018 till date.

 

The issues of paucity of funds and delayed payment of salaries were factors that adversely affected the first tenure of Governor Ortom. As if these were not enough evils to befall one man, Fulani herdsmen came calling with venom. It was as though these marauders had timed their assault to coincide with Ortom’s most vulnerable moment in office as Governor. There is a sense in which some sort of political undertone could be read into the attacks of the murderous herders to further weaken Ortom’s position and legitimacy as Governor. His traducers said he wasn’t able to pay salaries and pensions anyway, so what was his use in continuing in office?

 

But if there were such devious plots to the mayhem, its perpetrators exceedingly under-estimated the inner strength in Ortom’s seemingly soft physique. This would be the ultimate resource he probably called forth to weather the storm that threatened to overwhelm him.

 

And so from Agatu to other communities, it was bloodbath after bloodbath that saw families and communities decimated. A question arose: was there a central government in the country while these mass murders took place? Ironically, Ortom belonged to the ruling APC central government at the time. But rather than offer help, President Muhammadu Buhari and his security chiefs, who are incidentally from the same ethnic Fulani stock as the killers, merely watched on and offered a barrage of embarrassing excuses that would make children giggle.

 

President Buhari advised Ortom and Benue people to learn to live peacefully with their neighbours. It was an incredibly scandalous statement from the Commander-in-Chief of a country whose people were killed. Interior and defence ministers offered yet stupefying excuses: oh, grazing routes for cattle have been encroached upon by farmers; oh, these herders were from outside the country and not Nigerian Fulani; oh, Ortom didn’t consult widely before he enacted the anti-open grazing law in the state, etc, etc. And in the citizens awoke a sense of either a general lack of leadership in the country or perhaps an open endorsement of the activities of the killer herders.

 

In fact, Fulani herders came out to threaten and attack a Governor of a state in Nigeria for enacting the ‘Open Grazing Prohibition and Establishment of Ranches Law’, yet, leaders of the group still walk free till today, without consequences. A video trended at the time of a female Fulani who gave ample credence to what many had feared: that the Fulani value the life of cows more than human beings!!! If there was humanity or a sense of outrage in those who rule Nigeria, that was enough to prompt immediate action. But no; indeed, the life of a cow is worth more than a human’s. Governor Ortom was right when he said Buhari has turned Nigeria to a cow republic.

 

Governor Ortom has stood his ground on the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law and dared anyone to flaunt it. He has stood doggedly and wept with his people and defied the Presidency that appears to give tacit approval to the mass killings with its complicit silence and lack of action. Till date, no single herdsman has been paraded or is in court facing murder and arson charges by federal authorities. Only Benue has demonstrated the will to enforce its law with over 400 offenders so far arrested.

 

Benue people refused to buy the trickery of the APC government which was aimed at turning them against Governor Ortom. And so, as the 2019 general election approached, the people of the state chose to ignore the narrative of unpaid salaries and pensions to stand with the man who stood with them when outsiders sought to annihilate them. They chose Ortom above APC and returned him to office. He therefore reaped bountifully from where he sowed because he chose to sacrifice his own comfort to keep his people safe. Had he caved in to Miyetti Allah’s threats and the complicit silence from the Presidency, he would by now have been thrown into the bottomless pit of history as the man who sold out on his people and failed to stand with them in their moment of grief.

 

Samuel Ortom is the last man standing!