By Chesa Chesa
Still birming in the high-pitch tone, Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, smarting from a meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday at Aso Rock, said the issue of insecurity in the country is a very serious matter.
The governor had last Saturday ran for more than 1.5 kilometres inside the bush to escape some gunmen, who attacked him near his farm in Tyomu community along Makurdi-Gboko highway, in Benue state.
Apparently still brimming with anger, Ortom, told reporters shortly after the meeting with Buhari that the country should forget the 2023 elections, if the situation of insecurity in the country remained the same up till that time.
Buhari had on Sunday ordered security agencies to carry out what he called an “open and transparent” investigation into the attack, while condemning the incident and similar ones in various parts of the country.
Ortom told State House Correspondents after the meeting that he was pleased with President Buhari’s reaction to the development, adding that they shared ideas on how to manage the crisis, but warned that elections would not hold in 2023 if security challenges in the country persist.
“Nigeria is sitting on a keg of gun powder without meaningful progress being made on the issue of security”, he said, dismissing the allegations in certain quarters that the said attack on him was fake or arrange to achieve his selfish purpose.
He rather appealed to people not to politicise the issue but to give it the seriousness it deserved as nobody would like to joke with something as serious as that even if for the highest political gains or for whatever reason.
While asserting that he has not done anything wrong in signing into law the anti-open grazing bill beneficial to the state, he said the demand by the Miyetti Allah Cattle Breeders Association (MACBAN) to repeal the law would be impossible to fulfill, because it went through due process, stressing that the matter is clearly beyond him.
