Time to take Ortom’s patriotic calls more seriously 

By Fredrick Adebayo

Whenever the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom speaks, he does so on behalf of millions of voiceless Nigerians. Ortom is not a glib. He is not flippant. He doesn’t focus on frivolities. He goes for substance. He sees what others only get to see weeks or even months later.

Governor Ortom is a leader with uncommon depth whose utterances are guided by divine foresight. Ortom is forthright. He says it as it is. All his predictions and warnings, particularly about security and economic matters, have come to pass.

Nigeria as a sovereign nation under the leadership of President Muhammadu Buhari since 2015 has experienced an increasing spate of insecurity, even though the administration rode to the crest of power with the promise of putting a permanent end to issues of insecurity which became the bane of the former President Goodluck Jonathan administration.

At inception of the Buhari administration, such terms as ‘technical degrading’ of Boko Haram terrorists were used by the presidency to argue that indeed insecurity was being frontally combatted. However, the reality on ground has proven that insecurity has remained the greatest nightmare of the citizenry given that the government’s first fundamental responsibility to citizens is protection of lives and property.

The distressing insecurity situation in Nigeria as a result of the carnage perpetrated by Boko Haram terrorists, bandits, ISWAP, marauding herdsmen and the likes have continuously sent shivers down the spines of most citizens as no one is safe in any part of the country today, including the President himself whose advance team convoy was recently attacked in his own home state of Katsina.

It is instructive to point out here that in the face of all these glaring loopholes in our security situation, the Benue State Governor, Ortom has been one of the leaders who has consistently made patroitic interventions on the need to proactively curb the horrible situation before it gets to a point where terrorists will one day sack the president and take-over the Aso Villa.

Just a few weeks ago, precisely on June 30, 2022, Governor Ortom gave a timely caution that with the manner terrorists have been invading parts of the country, one day, the terrorists will attack the presidential villa, if nothing is done to avert the ugly situation before it happens. Of course, it was barely four days afterwards on July 5 that terrorists successfully launched an attack on the FCT Abuja, Kuje Correctional Centre freeing hundreds of inmates amongst them notorious terrorists who were detained in the facility. With all the security formations in Abuja, the attackers operated unchallenged and went away.

It did not also take long for the advance team of the President to be attacked in Katsina State. As at today, news filtered in as the terrorists have boldly threatened that President Buhari and Governor El-Rufai of Kaduna State are their next targets.

According to news sources: “In a new video that has gone viral, the terrorists who abducted over 60 passengers of the Abuja Kaduna train on March 28, threatened to abduct and kill Buhari and Governor of Kaduna State, Malam Nasir El-Rufai.

According to Daily Trust, “the terrorists also boasted that they would destroy the country, kill the remaining passengers in their custody and sell out the others.”

The report further states that one of the terrorists threatened that unless the government complies with their demands, they would turn the area into an abattoir.

“This is our message to the government of Nigeria and just as you have seen these people here, by God’s grace, you will see your leaders; your senators and governors will come before us. These ones you are seeing here, we will keep some as our slaves and sell them off just as our Imam told you in the past,” one of the terrorists was qouted to have said.

The news report further attributed to the terrorist as saying in Hausa: “Just like the Chibok girls that were sold off, we will equally sell these ones as slaves. If you don’t adhere to our demands, we will kill the ones we need to kill and sell the remaining. By God’s grace, El-Rufai, Buhari, we will bring you here.”

Suffice to ask, if terrorists can boldly threaten to kidnap the nation’s number one citizen, who then is safe anywhere in the country? This is where there are a number of lessons to draw from Governor Ortom’s patriotic interventions as he has proven himself as the man who saw tomorrow.

The Benue State Governor is a voice of conscience and reason that must be taken seriously, even if the Presidency does not like him for who he is and what he does, they must learn to separate the message from the messenger. The message may be the saving grace to avert the looming national calamity that stares us in the face.

In times of national turbulence, proactive measures are key to nipping in the bud the impending danger and on this, Governor Ortom acts like the gadfly to sting the Federal Government to consciousness to act earlier than it should be late.

Another important lesson to mention here is that Governor Ortom loves his fatherland and desires to see things function correctly because he has chosen to remain undeterred in the face of even threats to his life for speaking against the myriad of social problems that are eating deeply into the fabric of our nationhood.

Let it be known that posterity will be fair to those who braved the odds to sustain the state of our national sovereignty and spoke as well as acted in defence of citizens of this great country. Governor Ortom has already secured a place in the annals of Nigeria for his bold, firm and courageous stand towards ensuring that the country works to protect the interests of all citizens irrespective of their backgrounds.

Lastly, now that terrorists have threatened the Commander-in-Chief, Mr President himself, I hope that those who doubted Govenor Ortom when he said that he was attacked in March 2021 on his way back from the farm will tender apology to the Governor and tuck their tails between their legs.

* Adebayo writes from Lagos.