From Henry Ibya, Makurdi
Immediate-past governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has noted that resorting to attacks on his administration instead of telling the people what the current government is doing to curb insecurity and address the plight of Internally Displaced Persons, IDPs, is completely unacceptable.
Ortom, who was reacting to fresh attacks by Governor Hyacinth Alia, through his chief press secretary regarding the humanitarian crisis in the state, accused the current governor of deviating from the core issues into what he described as the usual blame game which centres on what the previous administration failed to do.
The former governor in a statement yesterday in Makurdi by his media aide, Terver Akase, reminded Governor Alia of his failed promise during the campaign to return IDPs to their ancestral homes within his first 100 days in office.
He recalled that Governor Alia also accused him of failing to handle the security situation properly, insisting that the governor used the security situation to blackmail his administration to gain political patronage.
“Now that he has realised that the algorithms for combating insecurity are not as simple as he thought during campaign, he should seek help by engaging those who have the knowledge in handling the situation.
“Security is everyone’s responsibility and government cannot claim to have exclusive solutions,” Ortom advised.
He said if the present administration is unable to utilise the huge federal allocations coming to the state to tackle insecurity, it should call for a stakeholders meeting for experts to assist it with useful advice on ways of dealing with the challenges at hand, noting that grandstanding in the media and constantly telling the rest of the country that there is relative peace in the state when attacks are currently being carried out on a daily basis with secret killings with thousands still being rendered homeless won’t solve the problem.
Ortom equally recalled that the Benue State Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of 2017 which the present government had suspended was enacted on popular demand by the people, noting that suspending the law while the people are being killed is unacceptable.
He advised Alia to refrain from seeking scapegoats, but should rather swallow his pride and embrace ideas on the best ways to address the security challenges.
