Benue Group criticises Governor Ortom’s open support for IPOB, Kanu

A group in Benue State, which styles itself as the Benue Patriotic Front (BPF), has criticised Governor Samuel Ortom’s open endorsement of Indigenous People of Biafra (IPOB) and its leader, Nnamdi Kanu, as an embarrassment to the state.

The Group also said that the governor by his endorsement had exposed himself as a sympathiser and supporter of the terrorist organisation that had unleashed a series of mayhems on life and property in the Southeast zone in recent months.

The Group’s main grouse about Governor Ortom was his reported description of Kanu as a freedom fighter and his call on the Federal Government to use the same zeal in the capture of the IPOB leader in arresting what he described as ‘’killer herdsmen’’.

President of the BPF, Mr Dan-Mogan Ihomun, on behalf of the group, condemned, what the group described as Ortom’s resort to the use of banal language, and deployment of insensitive propaganda and falsehood in his bid to put down the action of the Federal Government as sectional.

The Group said ‘’Ortom has exposed himself by sympathising with the terrorist organization. His impulsive reaction to Kanu’s arrest and his insensitivity to the plight of those killed and maimed by IPOB have shown his stand on national security.”

The group wondered why Governor Ortom would choose an unrelated event like his belated flag off of sale of fertilizers to express his displeasure about Kanu’s arrest, even as it pointed out that ‘’Ortom himself has failed to tackle security issues in Benue State.”

The BPF, therefore, called on security agencies to “beam their searchlights on Benue with a view to routing the terrorists in the state.’’

On the perceived poor state of the economy of Benue state, the BPF laid the blame at the doorstep of the Ortom administration.

It said: ‘’The Government has run a deliberate policy of de-industrialization of the state while the Governor’s private outfit- the Oracle Conglomerate- has witnessed an unprecedented boom in the last six years.

“The recent Memorandum of Understanding ( MoU) with Rivers state on rice production at the last phase of the Ortom’s administration is, as far as we are concerned, a hoax.”

The Group lamented that Benue state had been governed on the basis of lies since 2015, pointing out that the most recent tissue of lies was the spurious claim that one million people were in Internally Displaced Persons’ (IDP) camps.

The Group advised the Governor to focus on redeeming his failed administration and desist from hiding under unconscionable politics to mask his disastrous performance in government.