Benue Governor Samuel Ortom has made his threat not to support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar not only with words but with the branding of over 30 vehicles without his image.
The vehicles were unveiled and distributed to PDP campaign coordinators across the 23 Local Government Areas of Benue state.
Ortom’s major grievances against Atiku
The Benue State governor said on Saturday that, it was appropriate for Major General Muhammadu Buhari’s successor to come from the South in the next year’s elections.
According to Channels Television, Ortom declared that he was the first governor from the North to support a southern presidential election while speaking at the Adokiye Amiesimaka Stadium during the launch of the Peoples Democratic Party state campaign in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State.
He claimed that justice and fairness would be served by doing so.
“Nigerians, for the sake of equity, fairness, and justice, expect that after eight years of President Buhari, the next President should go to the south irrespective of political affiliation and that is the right thing to do,” said Ortom, who is among the five PDP governors who felt wronged and demanded the resignation of the party’s National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu. We must make sure that everyone works together because we are Nigerians.
Governor Nyesom Wike of Rivers State, according to Ortom, was the ideal candidate to succeed Buhari, but “enemies of progress” made sure he lost the party’s presidential primary in May.
Atiku’s Fulani origin and his unguided comment
Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate, has been asked to apologize by Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State for allegedly lying against him.
In response to a group protesting at the Government House in Makurdi over alleged falsehoods made against him by Atiku, Mr. Ortom made this statement on Wednesday. The group was led by the Jemgbagh Youths.
Atiku, a former vice president of Nigeria, was advised by him to publicly retract his claim that his brothers were robbing herdsmen of their cattle in the state.
“Immediately I heard the news, I sent him a message on WhatsApp and he apologised to me.
“I told him to make the apology public but he declined, and I am saying he cannot undress an elder like me in public and then come back to dress me in a room.
“He lied against me and I take exceptions to that because what he said is hate speech,” Mr Ortom said.
The governor faulted Atiku’s claim that he issued a blanket condemnation of all Fulani people as bad, saying he never said that.
“Some Fulani people are my friends, I trust them to a point of even taking them to my bedroom and I have not sent any Fulani man away from Benue.”
“It is only the foreign ones that came from Mali, Mauritania among others that are terrorising our people.
