Gov’s aides allegedly involved in killing of Catholic priests – Oshiomhole

Oshiomhole also said that the Governor is dancing on the grave of dead people.

According to him, “The second is that they (Benue APC) drew our attention to the fact that Gov. Ortom has complicated the situation by his own actions and poor judgment of the security situation in Benue state and they drew our attention to the fact that some of those who have been arrested were people who have been associated with Gov. Ortom including people who have been in his employ, including in particular a guy who was known to have been involved in Boko Haram activities and who he knowingly recruited to manage what they call Forest Guards.

“For any man of honour, if an appointee of government is involved in heinous crime,including killing, that would be enough for a governor to worry about. Instead, Gov. Ortom played up the ethnic dimension of criminality whereas in truth, some of those who have been killed were killed not by Muslims, they were killed by Christians of Benue state origin, including those he has employed.

“So, his attempt to explain away criminality by playing up ethnic sentiments is not helpful to what he should do as governor to manage the situation better. After all, those in Benue state have always been there by whatever description and therefore, Gov. Ortom’s predecessors including Gov. Suswam had found ways to manage this diversity. So, Ortom’s incapacity to manage it and even to seek to make political capital of the death of Benue people is most unfortunate because I believe that even in politics, there should be a level of morality.

“It is important to note that the condemnable killing of two Reverend Fathers in a church…those who have confessed to this crime include people who have worked with Gov. Ortom and these killings were done few weeks after one of these Reverend Fathers in a church sermon was extremely critical of the governance in Benue state and of the style of governance of Gov. Ortom and his price obviously was that few weeks after this sermon in which he was very critical of Gov. Ortom including the damage done to family life by the none payment of salaries that he had to pay with his dear life.

“For us, the shock is that, I am not about to suggest that Gov. Ortom might have asked anyone to go and kill anyone but that those involved in these killings, some of them are people of Benue state origin and that they are Christians. That is not to deny that some herdsmen have also been involved in the killings but the responsibility of any governor is not to seek to manipulate it but to confront it squarely”.

According to Punch, herdsmen attacked St. Ignatius Quasi Parish, Ukpor-Mbalom in Ayar-Mbalom community of Gwer East Local Government Area of Benue State, killing two Catholic priests and 17 other worshipperson April 24, 2018.

Ortom dumps APC

On Wednesday, July 25, 2018, the Benue state Governor announcedthat he was leaving the APC.

Ortom also revealed that he was joining the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to ensure justice, equity and fairness for the people of Benue.

The Governor also complained that he was constantly being attacked by the APC Benue state executives.

I am relieved Ortom left APC

According to Vanguard, the APC chairman said that he is relieved that the Benue state Governor left the ruling party.

Oshiomhole also said that fielding him as the party’s Governorship candidate in 2015 was by accident.

He said “I am relieved as national chairman and I believe that the leadership of the party in Benue state is also relieved that Ortom has left the party and returned to the club he belongs to. A club whose philosophy is share the money and not develop communities. So we now have a clean platform to search for a clean and credible candidate from Benue that can provide leadership that the great people of Benue state deserve and not someone who seeks to make political capital of human graves and celebrating the death of his own people.

“As a party, we condemn any life that has been wasted by any criminal whether in Benue state or any part of Nigeria and we accept that the government’s irreducible minimum responsibility must be to protect lives and property. But I condemn in strong terms anyone of us who is in government that seeks to get political capital on deaths because we have shared responsibility of Nigerians irrespective of religious, social and political status.

“So I just thought that I should clear the air that we are relieved that Ortom has gone and if you look at it, he got our ticket on a platter of gold because he was never a participant during the process of our party’s formation. He became a candidate by accident and the lesson for our party is that never again should anyone become a candidate on our platform by accident. It has to be by conscious choice and as things are, for those of us who monitored my comments since I became national chairman, my aim is that we will have a political party that is defined by clear cut ideology and people will join or abstain from joining except on the premise of conviction.”

Nollywood actor

According to the APC chairman, Ortom has reduced the serious business of governance to a Nollywood movie

Oshiomhole said “I wanted to simply cross check with him on the allegations made against him and he was to come by Wednesday that is why he organised that drama. And that tells you the quality of reasoning, with all due respect to Governor Ortom, how can you reduce governance to Nollywood, saying ‘when I wanted to go to Abuja to meet with the National Working Committee, my people blocked the road that I will not go’. When has it become a case that when a governor wants to travel it is on the radio that he is travelling and this is the purpose?”

Ortom would have brought bad luck

Oshiomhole said that fielding Ortom as the APC ‘s governorship candidate in the next election would have cost the party.

According to him, the Benue state Governor refused to pay workers’ salaries for several months despite the Federal Government’s bailouts to the state.

“The first is that as you all recall, Gov. Ortom had said the APC in Benue state had given him red card to leave our party and that they would not field him in the forthcoming governorship election in 2019 and because the door had been shut against him, he had no choice than to leave. Without going into investigations, we invited him to speak to us on the issues. We also invited our leaders of our party in Benue state to also brief us on what the issues were. From the point of view of our leaders in Benue state, their position was clear that they believed that fielding Gov. Ortom on the APC platform in the 2019 election could only lead to electoral defeat for a number of reasons.

“They reminded us that in spite of the allocations accruing to Benue state and in spite of the bail out funds amounting to over N20 billion that they had received in two instalments of N10 billion each and in addition to the huge sums of money that Benue state collected from the Paris Club Refund, Gov. Ortom has not, and is not paying salaries to Benue workers as and when due, including teachers, local government employees and the state civil servants.

“He is owing some of them as much as 12 months salary, some more than 16 months and so the entire economy of Benue state that survives largely on civil servants salaries is to that extent compromised.

“Of course, what is not readily obvious to many, and which they told us, is the fact that most of our elders who have built houses as part of their retirement plans and who expect to live on rent paid by civil servants who are tenants, the fact that the entire civil servants in Benue state are not being paid means that they in turn are defaulting in the payments of their rents and you know the implication of this on traders and the commercial life of Benue state. This element alone substantially explains the vicious cycle of poverty in Benue state that has been deepened under Gov. Ortom,” he added.

The APC spokesman, Bolaji Abudullahi,on Wednesday, July 25, 2018 had issued a statement saying that the party was surprised that Governor Ortom defected to PDP.

Abudullahi also told newsmen that it was not too late to get the Governor back in its fold.