Unongo Backs Ortom’s Condemnation of Killings in Benue

George Okoh in Makurdi

Elder statesman and former Minister of Steel in the Second Republic, Wantaregh Paul Unongo, has thrown his weight behind Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, insisting that the governor is not inciting sectarian crisis or spreading falsehood in the country.

Unongo, who spoke at a stakeholders’ meeting put together by the state government in Makurdi yesterday, said the message the governor had consistently passed across to the President Muhammadu Buhari and the entire country is that Benue people are being killed like chickens by suspected armed Fulani herdsmen and that the development was becoming unbearable.

He said Governor Ortom, whom he described as “my son”, is not fighting the President as alluded by the Presidency and some Nigerians in certain quarters but demonstrating his constitutional role.

The former minister, who until recently was a member of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) expressed disenchantment on the killings, stressing that he was ready to raise two million fighters in 2018 when 73 Benue citizens, who were killed by armed herders were given mass burial in the state.

He tasked members of the National Assembly from the state to brace up and support the cause the governor is fighting to stop the erroneous impression in certain quarters that the governor is fighting a personal cause against the president.

The elder statesman, who reminisced the sacrifice the people of the state had made to keep the country together, particularly during the civil war where several soldiers from the state were killed said the ongoing killings are painful.

He promised to get across to the President with a view to presenting the situation to him even as he urged the governor to dialogue.