BY BIMPE ADEYEMI
GOVERNOR Samuel Ortom of Benue State has recounted how he escaped death by a whisker on Saturday.
He said if not for God and his fitness, which gave him the grace of running for more than one and a half kilometres before stopping, it might have been a different story.
Gunmen suspected to be bandits had attacked Ortom’s convoy on Saturday, at Tyo Mu, along Makurdi/Gboko road.
The Governor was reportedly on his way to Makurdi at about noon, when the gunmen opened fire on his convoy but were eventually repelled by his security men.
Ortom accused the leadership of MACBAN of trying to eliminate him in his farm, wondering how ordinary people could go to farm if he couldn’t go with all the security details around him.
“My lawyer is going to make a petition against the leadership of MACBAN because they came out to target me and behind the scene they are planning to eliminate me on my own land. If I can’t go to the farm as governor with entire security around me then who else can go to farm? You can imagine the pains that we have here in Benue State,” Ortom said in a statement shortly after the incident.
However, while narrating his ordeal to journalists in Makurdi after he escaped the attack, he said, “I thank God for my fitness to have run for more than one and a half kilometres without stopping…It means that God has given me strength and I am grateful to Him.”
He appreciated his six security aides for the wonderful job they did in repelling the 15 armed bandits, saying that it was while the aides confronted the gunmen that he ran over a distance of one and a half kilometre.
The Governor said, “I appreciate the security men attached to me. They were able to repel them and they could not have access to me…
“I don’t have problems with any Fulani man or Fulani race. But I have a problem with Fulani bandits who have vowed to take over Nigeria as their ancestral home. To this, I say no. Not when I am here and when I am governor leading my state.
“If I can’t go to farm as a governor with the entire security around me, then who else can go to farm? You can imagine the pains that we have here in Benue State.
“Thank God for Mr President who responded to my letter that anyone with AK-47 should be shot at sight. I have yet to see that. Let me see it happen in Benue State.”
He said he had reported the incident to the security agencies, adding that he hoped the President’s directive would be implemented so that the land would be safe for people to go back to farm, do their work, survive and live their lives.
“I want to call on Mr President, on the security agencies to fish these people out. They are in the forest, between Makurdi and Abinse,” Ortom said.
“They are living there and they are coming out to commit atrocities, rape women, kill our people, maim them, destroy our farmlands. And anytime the security agencies go after them, they run across the river and back to the forest,” he added.
