Buhari Minister, APC Leaders Call For State Of Emergency In Benue

• The party leaders condemned what it described as the Benue governor’s “penchant for verbally attacking” the President Muhammadu Buhari (retd), without regard for his age and office.

President Muhammadu Buhari Minister for Special Duties, George Akume, and other leaders of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State have called on the Federal Government to declare state of emergency in the state.

Akume, who spoke on behalf of APC leaders in the state at a media briefing in Abuja, on Monday, said that the call was hinged on the fact that Governor Samuel Ortom had lost control of the security situation in the state.

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The party leaders condemned what it described as the Benue governor’s “penchant for verbally attacking” the President Muhammadu Buhari (retd), without regard for his age and office.

There has been war of words between the Benue Governor and the Presidency in the recent time over the security situation in the state.

On Saturday, Benue Governor sparked a fresh row with the Presidency on the security challenges in the country after accusing the federal authorities of pampering gunmen terrorizing the country.

Ortom, speaking on BBC Pidgin, also accused the Presidency of blackmailing him each time he tries to draw attention to its shortcomings.

But the Presidency, through the same medium, dismissed the governor as an ethnic jingoist who is out to cause disunity among Nigerians.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, labeled Ortom a disseminator of disinformation.

Firing the Presidency on Saturday, Ortom said: “If the government has power to stop Sunday Igboho and Nnamdi Kanu, why don’t they have the power to stop bandits? All we hear is unknown gunmen.

“For me, I know it is Fulani bandits that are coming to kill us in Benue and our current leaders at Aso Rock in the presidency have a hand in all this that is happening.

“In fact, I was not the one who said it: even the Fulani bandits, they don’t want them to be addressed as Fulani; they should just be calling them bandits. But they have come out to say this government brought them in 2015. It is not something to hide.

“I’m not the one who said this alone; Obasanjo has said it too; even the Sultan. Didn’t you hear what Commodore Kunle said a few days ago?”

Asked to prove his allegations, Ortom retorted: “Which proof do you want again? Why did the President not brand the Fulani bandits as terrorists just like he branded IPOB as a terrorist group, and the way he tagged Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho?

“The President knows what he is doing. There are good Fulani people who want the country to be at peace, but the President does not want it to happen.

“When I talk, the next thing is to blackmail me.

“When I spoke on Channels TV a few days ago, it had been a while I spoke there, then the next thing I heard was that they were being queried because of my interview.

“Miyetti Allah sponsors terrorism; they get funds and they have taken responsibility for their actions. I have written a couple of times to the President. Another group, Fulani Nationality Movement, attempted to assassinate me. I have sent these findings to the President.

“You remember in 2012 or so. I was a minister at the time, and we told Goodluck (Jonathan) to try to negotiate with Boko Haram.

“When we called them (Boko Haram fighters) to negotiate, they said, ‘No’, that Buhari would be their coordinator. Buhari was not President then.”

Ortom who was elected on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2015, decamped to the main opposition, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in 2018, stating that the APC was no longer the platform that has the interest of the people of his state, Benue, at heart.

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