ORTOM: The solid rock
His name is not Peter. He is not one of the apostles who followed Jesus while he was on earth. But everything Samuel Ortom says and does bears the emblem of a man who was born to help solve problems confronting his people and the groups he belongs to. So call him the Rock and you won’t be wrong.
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has shown time and again that he is a pragmatic leader who thinks not about himself but more about the people he leads. He wears the carriage and air of a charismatic man, yet humble and unassuming. He makes decision making look easy in very difficult situations. He proffers solutions to knotty issues that others crack their brains trying to solve.
Today across the length and breath of this country, people are celebrating the new National Chairman of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Dr Iyorchia Ayu who was unanimously elected to lead the party and rescue the country from the jaws of economic collapse and devastating insecurity. One man who is the hand behind the successful emergence of Dr Ayu is Governor Samuel Ortom. How he effectively convinced the rest of the stakeholders in the entire north to settle for Ayu is a story for another day. That again proves that indeed the hand of God is upon Samuel Ortom.
Going back a bit down memory lane, the struggle for the soul of Benue State against the conquest agenda of Fulani Jihadists is another story that has had Ortom’s name inscribed permanently on the slate of history of this country. Today, Nigeria has risen to embrace Ranching and condemned open grazing of cattle. When Governor Ortom began the crusade against open grazing, many people vilified and castigated him. Even some of those who were close to him betrayed his trust in them. They thought he must be insane to think that the age-long nomadic cattle practice of Fulanis who are the self-acclaimed “owners of Nigeria” could be easily phased out. It got to a point that some of his colleague Governors betrayed him, blaming the attacks in Benue State which led to the death of hundreds of people on the enactment of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law.
But Governor Ortom, like a prophet, kept his focus. He made a prediction which turned out to be a prophecy during a lecture he presented at University of Nsukka in 2019 that some day soon, Nigerians will embrace Ranching as the best method of animal husbandry like June 12 was recognized after many years. But Ortom’s prophecy came to pass sooner than many had expected. Just the following year being 2020, some state governments started making moves to enact laws to ban open grazing. By the year 2021, the entire 17 states of the south took a unanimous decision to ban open grazing. The move came on the heels of the decision of some northern states to also ban open grazing.
It was the making of prophet Ortom. What he saw some years ago sitting down, others couldn’t see standing on a mountain. Today, Nigerians are singing the same song against open grazing.
His critics, having found nothing to use against him, have adopted guerrilla tactics of saying that he has not performed well. Governor Ortom again shut such critics up when he invited other Governors including Nyesom Wike of Rivers, Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Enugu States who commissioned numerous projects such as roads, schools and other infrastructure in Makurdi and Gboko. He had earlier commissioned many other projects in Zone A and C parts of the state.
Governor Ortom is a man who does not mince words or pretend about what he believes to be the right thing. He fears God but not man. He only respects those who earn his respect. Where other men of his ilk would have quaked and crumbled to the ground in piteous lamentation, he stands firmly and resolute and shows the inner strength of a man of purpose and conviction who would do everything in his power to give his people direction.
Ortom is indeed the last man standing for Benue people and other Nigerians! He has on several occasions spoken truth to power! He has been vilified, blackmailed and even marked for elimination. But the Guma-born astute politician and philanthropist has refused to buckle under the heavy weight of Presidential threats and attacks. Some of his own people who are apologists of the Presidency use his name to curry favours at the Villa. They tag him as the only enemy of Fulani.
Governor Ortom’s only offense is enacting the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law in 2017 and ensuring its full enforcement since then. Ortom’s insistence that anyone who rears cattle in Benue must do so in ranches and in accordance with the state law on animal husbandry has drawn the ire of the Fulani oligarchs whose cows know nothing else than encroaching on farmlands and destroying people’s property.
He has repeatedly put the blame of the ongoing carnage in parts of the country as perpetrated by Fulani herdsmen squarely on the feet of the Presidency. He faults the Presidency’s handling of the crisis, particularly its kid gloves treatment of Fulani terrorists. Governor Ortom has fearlessly challenged the Presidency to declare armed Fulani herdsmen as terrorists and have them arrested, the same way agitators such as Nnamdi Kanu and Sunday Igboho have been treated.
Curiously, the Presidency has never taken Ortom on any of the issues he has been raising. Instead, they sponsor mercenaries to write hurtful things against the Governor. The Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume recently displayed the most shameful act and the highest level of insensitivity when he held a press conference in Abuja to castigate Governor Ortom and thereafter rode on armored vehicles to Makurdi like one who was heading to war. The Internally Displaced People in the Abagena IDP camp couldn’t bear the insult from Akume who had not visited any of the camps since 2017 only to return in a motorcade of armored vehicles. They fetched stones and rotten tomatoes and pelted the Minister’s convoy. That was the shame! Again, Ortom won!
Samuel Ortom has been a blend and brand of courage, steadfastness, justice, truth and forthrightness. Even when he couldn’t pay salaries as a result of the recession Nigeria plunged into, he explained to his people that the circumstances were beyond his administration.
Governor Ortom has stood his ground on the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law and dared anyone to flaunt it. He has stood doggedly and wept with his people and defied the Presidency that appears to give tacit approval to the mass killings with its complicit silence and lack of action. Till date, no single herdsman has been paraded or is in court facing murder and arson charges by federal authorities. Only Benue has demonstrated the will to enforce its law with over 400 offenders so far arrested.
Benue people refused to buy the trickery of the APC government which was aimed at turning them against Governor Ortom. And so, as the 2019 general election approached, the people of the state chose to ignore the narrative of unpaid salaries and pensions to stand with the man who stood with them when outsiders sought to annihilate them. They chose Ortom above APC and returned him to office. He therefore reaped bountifully from where he sowed because he chose to sacrifice his own comfort to keep his people safe. Had he caved in to Miyetti Allah’s threats and the complicit silence from the Presidency, he would by now have been thrown into the bottomless pit of history as the man who sold out on his people and failed to stand with them in their moment of grief.
Today, PDP is on the march to rescue Nigeria from bad governance orchestrated by APC. When the 2023 victory song is composed, Samuel Ortom’s name will feature prominently as one of those who stood up to be counted and answered their father’s name. He is indeed a rock for the PDP.
*Anande Chancha is a public affairs commentator who writes from Gboko, Benue State.
