For a very long time I have not written any article against the Governor of Benue State, His Excellency, Samuel Ortom and some people have criticized me for failing to criticize Ortom despite his very poor governance. But the reasons I don’t write articles for or against Ortom are best known to me.
It behooves me to write this article based on some critical issues that ought to be addressed in the prevailing political tsunami going on in Benue State.
Ortom at the Banquet Hall of the Government House in Makurdi yesterday announced that he is no longer with the All Progressives Congress (APC). Ortom said he has been given a red card and is now outside the pitch.
I support the Anti-Open Grazing law and shall resist with all might any attempt from the presidency or any other place to abort it. I applaud Ortom for standing by the law. But I want him to know that his saving grace now is not his stand for the law but his concern about the welfare of Benue workers.
The Anti-Open Grazing law alone is not enough to save Ortom in his 2019 re-election bid even if he were still in APC because many people were planning to vote against him even in APC before his so called “red card” came up.
The only saving grace Ortom has now is to pay all salaries and arrears and bring back all those unjustly sacked back on the payroll. Once he does these, victory will be assured for him regardless of the party he joins. But if he fails to do them, then he will be a bad product to sell on any other political platform.
From my survey, many believe that the Anti-Open Grazing law has been politicized and over dramatized by Ortom to get cheap votes from the bunch of the gullible and Ignoramus people of Benue State who are strong-willed to swim in ignorance and negligence because he knows apart from the law his manifesto would be provoking and would be the usual political rhetorics because his government’s overall assessment is a colossal failure. They say the law cannot be his saving grace if he hopes that the law will swing him to being re-elected in 2019 without doing the needful. Let us all watch how the Benue political drama unfolds ahead of 2019 general election. I wish Gov. Ortom good luck in his political and leadership drive.
By Terfa Naswem