After Muhammadu Buhari, the sitting president and member of the All Progressives Congress, APC, had been declared winner of the February 23 presidential election, many had thought that Governor Samuel Ortom would have a Herculean task, convincing the people of Benue to return him for a second term. This was because Ortom had defected from the APC to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, saying APC had given him red card. However, the opposite became the case.
Sources close to the state government had it that Ortom parted ways with the leader of the APC in Benue, Senator George Akume, over what some people termed as overbearing influence by way of appointments and so on. Some people had thought that Ortom was going to mention instances of how government money was spent on Akume and his family or instances of how raw cash was given to whom he had earlier referred to, as his godfather in politics, but such things did not come up.
On re-joining the PDP, Ortom consistently said that President Buhari failed to stop killings in Benue by suspected herdsmen and alleged that the Federal Government was backing militia herdsmen, who started killing farmers and other innocent citizens since 2011. Ortom had called for the arrest and prosecution of leaders of Miyetti Allah, Kautal Hore who allegedly declared that Benue would not know peace until the open grazing and ranches establishment law was repealed, but his call was of no effect.
Ortom was appalled that on January 1, 2018, militia herdsmen, who were later referred to as terrorists allegedly killed over 70 persons in Guma, Ortom’s home local government and Logo, former Governor Gabriel Suswam’s home local government and the president didn’t take measures to check the heinous act nor commiserate with the people. Before the end of the year 2018, over 150 persons had been killed in Benue with over 500,000 others displaced, including women and children.
Even as the Federal Government promised to resettle displaced persons after the mass burial of those killed at a ceremony that attracted the United Nations, the promise became a mirage.
When the elections drew nearer, it dawned on the Federal Government that killings in north central Nigeria was going to affect the re-election of the president, so, Buhari hurriedly visited affected states like Benue, Taraba and Plateau. Indeed, the minds of Benue people were still boiling when Buhari visited. The citizens vehemently spoke about neglect of the massacre and displaced persons as if Buhari would have no votes at all in the state. Why Buhari was beaten by Atiku by a gap of about 10,000 votes in the state would be a matter for discussion on another day.
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During the electioneering campaign, Buhari visited Benue to speak on his intention to further improve security and the economy but Atiku promised to look at the ranches establishment law with a view to doing something about it. Atiku of the PDP visited Benue with a lot of fanfare. Analysts had believed that the entire state and all the states devastated by herdsmen militia were going to completely cast their votes against Buhari. But the policies of the release of several funds for defraying of salaries and pension owed workers and retirees as well as trader moni, school feeding programme and the Npower programme endeared the president to many.
Governor Ortom, who was in the PDP before he defected to the APC after losing out at the party’s primaries and became APC’s flag bearer, courtesy of Senator Akume, intensified campaign,using the killing of Benue people and Federal Government/Akume’s claim that Benue people were killing themselves and not Fulani herdsmen as focal point. He told the people that the APC had devised means of making Benue ungovernable and swore that he would protect the people with the last drop of his blood. At a time, he raised the alarm that those opposed to the ranches establishment law wanted to kill him and insisted that nobody could take his life except God who gave it to him.
Knowing that Buhari may again turn his back on Benue if Ortom won the governorship election of March 9, some referred to the governor as the president and defender of the Benue Valley. With the support of two former Senate Presidents, David Mark and Iorchia Ayu as well former governor, Suswam and Comrade Abba Moro, a former minister, Ortom garnered more support ahead of the gubernatorial election. Over 300 support groups visited the governor to express their willingness to work for his re-election. Those in the academia were not left out.
When it was about a week to the election, the PDP members met to review its performance in the February 23 elections and decided to go beyond all differences to work for the re-election of Ortom. Officials of the party at the local government level and council members were in attendance. This was when the APC which started its campaign close to the February 23 elections had almost forgotten about whether the governorship election was important or not.
Earlier, Ortom had built bridges of friendship with those that contested with him in the PDP primaries. The crack in the APC caused by those that contested in the party’s primaries with Emmanuel Jime had not been attended to. The aspirants, who kept mute during the first and second elections of February 23 and March 9, appeared to have worked against Jime’s election underground.
Prior to the gubernatorial elections,, Comrade Abba Moro who had several support groups in the Idoma speaking area of the state, won his senatorial election just as Suswam, who was at the House of Representatives for eight years and had his allies in the Benue Northeast Senatorial district, was victorious in the senatorial election. Moro and Suswam as well as Orkey Jev, a member of the House of Representatives who defeated Akume in the senatorial election mobilised a lot of their supporters to work for Ortom’s re-election. David Mark, the political leader of the Idoma had vowed that he would ensure Ortom’s victory because he, Ortom, had put his life on the line for the sake of the people.
Dr. Iorchia Ayu, Akume’s former boss and friend, who had parted ways with him, used his academic and political prowess to mobilize the people of Benue Northwest against Akume’s ambition to go back to the Senate. In the MINDA area where Ortom hails from, the divergent views among his brothers and sisters who were partially divided along sectional lines later became fused by the fact that Ortom should spend eight years in office like his predecessor, Suswam and the previous one, Akume.
Ortom’s inability to pay salaries and pension as and when due was to be his undoing but the leadership of labour unions had soft spot for him. They did not debase the speculation that they had agreed with Ortom that after receiving allocations for two months, he, Ortom, would pay salaries for one month even as the purported agreement appeared to have broken down with Ortom’s efforts at defending the people against invaders occupying the center stage. Unstable oil prices occasioned by the glut compounded the situation about salaries.
Aside from the salary and pension issues, there was the impression that about 40,000 local government and state workers should not be taken to be equal to the over four or five million Benue people. As good as this argument was, the ordinary Benue people had believed that the rest of them depended on the workers who could no longer sustain them partially because of salary and pension problems. The argument of workers and their dependants became subsumed in the mass movement of people, especially women and men as well as youths that trooped into Ortom’s office as the elections drew nearer to seek for enablement since those that should feed them could no longer do so.
But that problem did not vitiate the stand of the people of Benue, especially the Tiv who had decided that Ortom should be returned to the office for a second term. They argued that the problem of salaries and pension did not start with Ortom, so, he should not be he held responsible for the setback. According to them, Ortom had been inundated with political problems arising from the violent attacks that resulted to genocide for almost nine years.
Close to the elections, the issue of Federal and state powers arose with Ortom insisting that the people’s will would prevail in the elections, as Akume was said to have allegedly hired some thugs to disturb the peace in Makurdi, the state capital before the gubernatorial elections. The allegation that Akume wanted to upturn the senatorial election results which replaced him with Orkey Jev pitched him, the APC and the gubernatorial candidate of the party, Emmanuel Jime against the people who knew that Jime had been against Fulani invasion of Benue when he was at the House of Representatives but became uncertain as Akume, the leader of the APC in the state lost his credibility due to utterances that were unexpected of him.
Why the effect of Buhari’s victory was not felt
Many had thought that the bandwagon effect of Buhari’s re-election would affect Ortom’s re-election chances, but the opposite was the case. A week before the March 9 elections, Benue APC had become dormant in the social and conventional media with both media and political groups aligning more with the Ortom’s administration which had largely patronized them. Like the conventional media did during Suswam’s eight years tenure, Ortom’s condemnation of Federal Government’s lackadaisical attitude towards checking the excesses of herdsmen was echoed in the newspapers and radio stations.
Privately owned media did not waiver in their commitment towards ensuring that Ortom was returned to office in 2019 because the governor is their patron. Legal battles took place between the Benue State government and local government chairmen and vice chairmen that were perceived as opposition party members with some of them charged for offenses ranging from diversion of funds and abuse of office. With the removal and seeming indictment of some local government officials, there was a clear indication that most of those in the local governments had to remain based on their loyalty.
In spite of the several steps taken by Ortom’s administration to ensure success in the polls, local government staff, pensioners and teachers expressed their grievances during the election in the Benue South Senatorial District where the APC got more votes. They mobilized their people to vote against Ortom but this did not stop him from winning the election because one after the other, he called staff of many local governments to seek for their understanding. The people of Vandeikya and Konshisha known as Jechira, who had promised to vote for Ortom so that power would shift to their area in 2023 gave unwavering support to the governor in the election.
The people of Sankera consisting Ukum, Logo and Katsina-Ala in spite of maneuvers by the APC, and the people of MINDA made up of Makurdi, Gwer-West, Gwen East and Guma later resolved to vote for Ortom because the Sankera leader, Suswam, who was accused of diverting government funds later became Ortom’s bosom friend, while MINDA sons and daughters later realised that they would be shortchanged if Ortom was denied second term because of differences between the Iharev people and the Nzorov, Ortom’s people.
Ortom did not give anything to chance as he intensified campaign within the last few days to the March 9 elections. To the surprise of many, the number of political groups that rallied round him within the period the elections were shifted increased astronomically with the result that there was no space for parking of vehicles within Government House.
Like in 2015, academics from Ortom’s former institutions, the Benue State University, BSU, formed groups that voluntarily worked for his re-election. A powerful committee was inaugurated for the review of his blue print which could not be implemented due to security and other challenges.
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To the surprise of people again, the attack on communities in Guma and Gwer-West local government areas by suspected herdsmen few days to the governorship election became a plus for Ortom as more people began to sym pathize with him over the problem of invasion of Benue communities, which started in 2011 in Gwer-West.
After losing out, those that participated in the APC gubernatorial primaries with Jime became aggrieved that they were not allowed to embark in open contest with him. Since then, the APC top notchers, who parted ways with Ortom as he left the party, went into hiding and began to plot the fall of the party. This group of politicians, who are of the MINDA extraction with Ortom, supported him secretly to defeat Jime at the polls.
The defeat of Senator Akume in the senatorial election of February 23 became a plus for Ortom as he was known to be the force behind the defeat. The defeat was like the defeat of a president as the whole of Benue Northwest Senatorial District celebrated the downfall as they held the governor in high esteem.
Akume’s celebration of Buhari’s victory turned out to be big embarrassment for the party as thugs destroyed PDP bill boards and posters in Makurdi. This singular attitude again worked in favour of Ortom.
To strengthen the governor’s chances in the election, about 39 political parties threw their weights behind him few days to the election. The parties’ representatives announced their decision to step down their governorship candidates so that Ortom would have a smooth sail.
As many negative things happened to the APC, the party could not redeem its image, which had been damaged beyond repairs. It was becoming obvious that APC would find it difficult to re-establish itself and win the supplementary elections, which came up on Saturday, March 23 after the governorship election had been declared inconclusive by INEC.
Supplementary elections
With Ortom having over 81,000 votes in his kitty before the main election was declared inconclusive, the supplementary elections were going to be tough for Jime.
The argument in certain quarters was that Ortom would have soft landing in the supplementary elections because most of the areas that were to participate in the elections of March 23 were strongholds of the PDP. A source had told our correspondent that only 70,000 registered voters collected their Permanent Voters Cards, PVCs, but that did not matter during the supplementary elections as INEC disclosed that over 100,000 voters were expected to take part.
Governor Ortom and the PDP saw the supplementary elections to be as serious as the main elections because of the erroneous impression that the Federal Government was going to use its might to turn the table and ensure that Jime was declared winner. The opposite rather became the case as the APC sat down to watch the PDP review its performance in the main elections with a view to strengthening its strategies for better performance.
What Benue people thought was going to be a good fight between Ortom and Jime therefore became a walkover for the ruling party in the state. While Ortom had 410,586 votes in the March 9 main governorship elections, Jime had 329,022. With the supplementary elections, Ortom had 434,473, while Jime scored 345,155, thus making Ortom to have an edge of 89,318 over Jime who intends to challenge the results at the tribunal.
The future
What Benue people may be thinking of now that Ortom has emerged winner of the governorship elections is where the governorship seat would go to in 2023. Understandably, the people of Benue South who should be eagerly gunning for the 2023 governorship position made the APC to marginally defeat the PDP in the gubernatorial elections to register their protests over issues that have not been disclosed.
No one knows the game-plan of the Idoma speaking people, whose leaders are ardent supporters of Ortom. Would the leaders and the led go their different ways in 2023 or would the followers draw the leaders to their side? Or would the leaders insist that their followers remain with them so that in 2023, they would go through Ortom to convince the majority ethnic group to give the Idoma the governorship seat?
Before the elections, Governor Ortom had said that the issue of where the governorship position would go to in 2023 would be decided by Benue people at the appropriate time but this did not deter the people of Jechira (Vandeikya and Konshisha) who had decided that they would massively vote for Ortom so that the seat would be given to them in 2023.
The Vandeikya people believe that Prof Ityavyagh, who is the commissioner for education, would be favoured by Ortom to replace him when the time comes. But the strongman of Konshisha politics, Mr. Iorwase Hembeh is believed to be warming up for the race. Hembeh is being supported by the youths in the area who recently voted him on the platform of All Progressive Grand Alliance, APGA, to go to the House of Representatives for the third time.
Whether the majority ethnic group would consider the people of Benue South Senatorial District who have not produced governor since the creation of the state in 1976 in 2013 or not is a matter for discussion on another day. Also for discussion on another date is the frantic efforts being made by Jechira people to occupy Government House in 2023 when it is on record that Governors Aper Aku and Moses Adasu from the area had ruled the state at different times.
