Group reveals how Ortom started Benue crisis, planned to spend 1bn on anti-FG campaign abroad

As reactions continue to trail the recent attack on Benue communities by suspected Fulani herdsmen were over 80 people were killed, a civil society group has slammed the state governor, Samuel Ortom for allegedly setting out to wipe out some ethnic group from the state.

The group, under he auspices of Good Governance and Transparency Initiative (GGTI), alleged that Ortom has been been arming militants, whom he instructed to cleanse out specific ethnic groups from the state based on the anti-grazing law that has remained a subject of contention.


GGTI, while describing the ugly development in Benue state as sickening, noted that nothing in the recent history of Nigeria has exhibited such callous disregard for human lives, not even Boko Haram.

The group said it was laughable that Ortom is crying like a child deprived of breast milk by accusing others for the war he started.

Mrs Jaiyeola Mohammed, Executive Director of the group in a statement said Ortom clawed at shadows at every opportunity even when he has done nothing to retrieve the weapons he gave to members of the Livestock Guards and Civilian JTF. 

He noted that all the highly condemnable things Governor Ortom has done in the past have now paled into insignificance considering their discovery that he planed to spend over 1 billion Naira to blackmail Hausa/Fulani ethnic group in several major cities of the world.

His words, “We have evidence that his contractors, mobilized with the 1 billion Naira Benue state money, have concluded logistics for Ortom’s protests in the United States, Canada and UK respectively. The money is going into providing transportation and allowances to protesters in these countries and also procure favourable media. The protesters would be coached to present themselves as angling for the interest of Nigeria.

“The money is being routed through a former Nigerian Ambassador to Canada, who is to lead the protest in Washington DC. He has identified conduits for distributing the money to protesters in the UK, US and Canada for the purpose of inciting Nigerians, blackmailing and tarnishing the image of the Nigerian State and if possible destroy the reputation of another particular ethnic stock outside the shores of Nigeria.



“One of these protests has been scheduled for Monday January 22, 2018 in Westminster, London. We are aware of several events built around this protest and how a second group of faux protesters would impersonate a pro-Federal Government of Nigeria group to spark violence that would be interpreted as two opposing Nigerian groups clashing over the farmers/herders’ crisis in Benue state. That someone can be remorseless to the point of hatching such satanic plot on foreign soil is an insight into the indifference with which he his own state, Benue, on fire. He has certainly crossed the last frontiers of sanity with this new plot for our country to look bad on the international scene.

“This sick plot is coming after Governor Ortom similarly expended his state money to trawl propaganda value from the mass burial for victims of his evil scheming. He failed to hide the fact that the mass burial was organized to incite the people of Benue State against the Hausa /Fulani ethnic stock failed to yield the needed calamity and chaos that was packaged to cover up his complicity in the instigated genocide in Benue State. 

“We find both instances to represent the depth of depravity because if he had as much as spent half of the 1 billion naira for foreign protests on his state he would have been able to pay salaries and would not have needed to create and arm a militia to divert attention from his incompetence. Our hope is that Governor Ortom has by now realize and would eventually accept that his position as Benue state governor is no longer tenable given the series of evil manifestation that have come from him without flinching in repulsion at the monster he has become.

“There is still time for the Benue state governor to call his protest contractors to order, recover the amount they are yet to spend to the state’s coffers and face the reality of the mess he has created. While he ponders how to end the festival of death he proclaimed upon his own people, we have some curious questions perchance there is still a human soul trapped inside the arrogant warlock that is demanding litres of human blood daily under the guise of farmers/herders’ clashes:

“Why is Governor Samuel Ortom afraid of an investigation by the Federal Govt to unravel the immediate cause of the most recent crisis in Guma, his Local Government Area and Logo Local Government Area? 

“Why is Governor Samuel Ortom bent on spending the tax payers’ money on such a publicity jamboree against another section of the country even when those he claimed to love and buried their family members have not received a penny of their salaries for the upkeep of their families? 

“What is keeping him from admitting his error, retrace his steps and put a stop to the carnage in Benue state to ensure that the rest of the country is not bunt in his evil play?

“Where would he draw the line and declare a stop to his sick obsession with blaming everyone but himself for crises he deliberately instigates?



“What will he do when the last of the state’s resources dry up with his irresponsible spending on propaganda to defend his lost war?”