The Presidency on Wednesday came hard on Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom over his ceaseless diatribe on President Muhammadu Buhari’s handling of national security
According to the Presidency, Ortom, with his utterances, has been inciting ethnic and religious hatred in his state, thereby stirring up a Rwandan-like crisis.
In a statement, Shehu, who is the Senior Special Assistant to the President on Media and Publicity, said Presidency also accused the governor of deliberately escalating the farmers’/herders’ clashes and causing more deaths in the Northcentral state.
The statement said the Benue Anti-Open Grazing Law was crafted to rob a particular ethnic group in the state of its rights.
Ortom chose the path of festering ethnic and religious wounds among the people in the state because of an alleged exclusionist agenda, Shehu claimed in the statement.
He said the governor concealed the agenda in the Ranches Establishment Law.
The statement reads: “The said Ranches Establishment Law is a ploy to withhold rights and freedom from the targeted ethnic group.
“Governor Ortom has few political principles. We can see this from the fact that he has changed political party five times during his undistinguished career.
“In an attempt to boost his sinking political fortunes, Ortom takes the cheapest and lowest route possible by playing on ethnic themes – and in doing so knowingly causes deaths of innocent Nigerians by inciting farmers against herders, and Christians against Muslims.
“Specifically, Ortom stirs up hatred by targeting one single ethnic group in Nigeria – using language reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide.
“As was the case in Rwanda where the then Hutu leaders of the country incited their countrymen against each other, claiming there was a ‘secret Tutsi agenda’ over the Hutu, Ortom claims there is a ‘secret Fulanisation agenda’ over other ethnic groups in his state and in Nigeria. This is a copy of the language of Hutu Power – which falsely, and intentionally, accused the Rwandan Tutsi of plans to dominate the country.”
credit: nation