Stop Your Hate Campaigns – Presidency Warns Gov Ortom

BY EDMOND ODOK, ABUJA – The Presidency has warned Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue to stop his current campaign of hate and falsehood against President Muhammadu Buhari as he seeks re-election in the March 2, 2019 gubernatorial poll.

In a statement issued in Abuja on Sunday, the Presidency urged the governor to focus on serious governance issues like payment of salaries arrears and outstanding entitlements to civil servants and pensioners who are being owed salaries for several months.

Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, said given the huge challenges confronting the state, it will be beneficial to the Benue people if Governor Ortom concentrates his energy on delivering good governance instead of spreading falsehood and making provocative speeches across the state  

According to the presidential aide, “Ortom’s campaign is clearly one designed to stir division and hatred, and to divert the people’s attention from his inability to pay staff salaries and pensions for several months.”

The statement slammed Ortom for being petty and divisive in his campaigns, noting that “the governor has been visiting churches in the state where he falsely tells congregations about President Buhari’s so-called plans to Islamise Benue State.

“This nonsense has formed the basis of his campaign, because he has nothing to offer Benue people.”

He said the allegations coming from Ortom were “particularly unfair, when one considers how much support the governor received from the Federal Government, which supported his grazing laws as a means to end the farmer-herder crises that have plagued the state.

“If not for President Buhari’s insistence that the governor be given a chance to effect the law, he would have faced resistance from different sources and found it difficult to implement.”

The statement, which advised Governor Ortom to immediately cease his dubious attacks on President Buhari and the Federal Government, urged the Benue people to shun his deception and ensure they are not hoodwinked by the ongoing negative campaign.

“They should instead, ask him why he has refused to pay staff salaries and pensions for months, and what he did with the funding from the excess crude account which should ideally have gone towards addressing such payments,” the statement said