Governor Samuel Ortom yesterday responded to
statements credited to former Governor of the
state, Gabriel Suswam who had earlier accused
the present administration of fueling insecurity
and the arrest of his loyalists among other
accusations. Below is Governor Ortom's response:
"The previous administration armed youths for the
2015 elections. Since we came in, what we have
been doing is to try to change these youths by
convincing them to bring those weapons which
they did during the carrot approach of our
amnesty programme. I hope that the former
governor sees what is happening here - the
number of weapons that have been received.
When we say that over 600 of those weapons
were received from the youths, some people were
doubting but today, the media are here and can
see things for themselves. Let the former
governor come and see. He created insecurity but
I am here to restore security by the grace of God.
The Bible says the thief cometh not but to steal
and destroy; but the son of God cometh to give
life.
I have come to give life to Benue people not to
kill, not to steal or to destroy. I challenge him; we
did not use violence in winning the election last
year so we will not be distracted. But it is said
that silence is consent, so we are bound to reply
him when he talks about these things.
All the challenges that are here today were
anchored by him. He is the first governor of the
state ever to be arraigned before a court of
competent jurisdiction on fraud charges. So he
should go and face his fraud charges instead of
talking about his men being arrested everyday.
Everyone arrested by security agencies is for one
case or the other and the records are there -
those who are in prison, those who are in
detention. He can verify with security agencies.
No one under my watch as Governor of Benue
State has ever been arrested arbitrarily. How can
we allow criminals to be terrorizing the people, to
be killing people, to be kidnapping people, to be
molesting people?
As I have said before, I will not surrender Benue
to criminals."
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