Ortom accuses Sanusi, other Fulani elites of plotting to eliminate him

The Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has alleged that a group of Fulani elites are planning to eliminate him over a recent incident in Nasarawa State where scores of herdsmen were killed in a bomb attack.

Speaking at a press conference in Makurdi on Thursday, February 2, 2023, Ortom accused some personalities led by the former Emir of Kano, Sanusi Lamido Sanusi, of making all manner of accusations against him in a sinister attempt to set him up for hatred and attacks.

He revealed that the group, in a petition signed by 52 personalities including Sanusi and sent to President Muhammadu Buhari, had accused him of masterminding the killing of some pastoralists via bomb attack at Akwanaja in Doma Local Government Area of Nasarawa State.

The Governor said the group also fingered the Benue State Livestock Guards in the killings, claiming that the pastoralists were bombed on their way to Nasarawa after retrieving their seized cattle in Benue.

Ortom's words: “I’m being targeted for elimination.

“I consider these allegations and blackmail targeted at my person and the Government of Benue State as part of a grand conspiracy by enemies of the state to eliminate me. Since 2017 when we enacted the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, I have escaped seven assassination attempts.

“Those behind the evil plots have not hidden their motive. They have made me an enemy for choosing to stand with my people and defending their rights to life and freedom. The recent utterances of some personalities such as Lamido Sanusi have revealed the true identities of those behind the sinister agenda to eliminate me. But my life is in the hands of God and only He can permit anything evil to come my way.”

While disclosing that he has written a counter-petition on the matter to be delivered to the president, Ortom stressed that he had no hands in the killings.

He added that, upon hearing the bombing incident in Doma in which the pastoralists were killed, he visited his Nasarawa State counterpart, Governor Abdullahi Sule, to sympathise with him and his people over his son's death and victims of the bomb incident.

Ortom's words: “I must state categorically that the Benue State Government under my leadership has no hand in the Akwanaja incident. Linking me with the bomb attack in Doma, Nasarawa State is the most unfair thing anyone would do to me.

“How am I connected or responsible for what did not take place in my state? Akwanaja is in Doma local government area of Nasarawa State, so how do I account for what did not take place in my state? I am Chief Security Officer only in Benue State.”