Ortom: Presidency cannot stop me from speaking about killings in Benue

Ortom: Presidency cannot stop me from speaking about killings in Benue

Tuesday, January 15, 2019 8:10 am


Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State

 

Governor Samuel Ortom has said he will not be cowed by the presidency from speaking his minds about attacks and killings in Benue State.

Ortom who said this while campaigning in Konshisha Local Government Area of the state was reacting to claim by the spokesman of the president, Mallam Garba Shehu that he has been attacking and accusing the President of islamisation plot during his campaign.

Ortom said, “I’m not sure it’s coming from Mr. President but from the presidency.”

“In my campaigns I have never insulted President Buhari, I have never made any hate speech against him at any given time. If I talk of Miyetti Allah claiming responsibility for the killings in Benue State, it came from them and it was before the media and everybody knew about it.

“If I talk about Fulani Nationality Movement (FUNAM), which did a press conference in Kano and proclaimed that the killings in Benue State were a continuation of 1804 jihad, it didn’t come from me, it came from them.

“I called for the arrest of these people because they were making hate speeches and displaying impunity over this country and I reported them to security agencies. I expected that these people should have been arrested. And I was just repeating that.

“Garba Shehu cannot tell me where I’ll go and do my campaigns. If I am in the church I will also go to the mosque and respect the Muslims for who they are, and I respect the church, that is the background I come from, I am a Christian.

“Can Garba Shehu come and tell me where to campaign? He doesn’t have the right, he is from APC and I am of the PDP and I am campaigning to win election for my party and my presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, because I believe he will not keep a cabal in the villa.

“I am a man, I am not a woman, that is why I respect the wife of the president who called all of us to come back that ‘where are the men in this country.

“Should we allow the cabal in the Villa to ruin this country? I am not a coward; it is a coward that will die 20 times before his actual death. Time has come for us to say the truth in this country. Whether it is going to be with our lives, we should say it in order to save the country and save our democracy.”


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