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The Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom has revealed that aside from the general issues which the G-5 Governors have against the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, he has a personal one against the party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
Ortom who spoke to reporters, on Thursday noted that politics was a game of interests and that as governor of Benue State, his interest and driving force was the safety and well being of the people of the state.
According to him, any candidate whose interest clashes with that of Benue people cannot enjoy his support nor that of the citizens and residents of the state.
Ortom said, “Apart from the G5, I’ve have personal issues with the presidential candidate of our party.
“He has turned a blind eye on the sufferings and the plight of my people who elected me. I have cried for more than six years about the carnage, the frustration I have, the terrorist activities of Fulani herdsmen, only for our candidate to go to Kaduna and say that he is a Fulani man, so, I should not complain when they are killing my people? This is unfair to me.
“So, for me, there are options in politics. I can decide to sit back and also turn a blind eye and not do anything at all.
“ I can decide on the day of voting to go and vote for somebody I think that can bring succur to me and my people. I can do that. So, but we have to be strategic.
“It’s not that we’re stuck. We know what to do. At the end, if the leadership or party is not able to come out with strategies that we also help to bring us back into the fold, we can decide to say okay, let everybody go and do the election according to the election. So, that is it.“
The Governor further noted that neither he nor his colleagues in the G-5 who were contesting the 2023 elections needed the candidate to win in their states because “all politics is local.”
He further noted that he has been contesting and winning elections since the 1980s and that even in Benue when some politicians who felt they owned the PDP denied him the party’s ticket which he clearly won, he was invited to the All Progressives Congress and given the ticket and he won to become governor for his first term in 2015.
Ortom also said when he noticed injustice and undemocratic practices in the APC and another attempt to deny him a second term ticket because of his firm stance in defence of the security of Benue people, he left and returned to the PDP and retained his seat as governor.
