By Prince Ogboji Ogboji


A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress from Benue State, Hon. Chief Johnson Agada, has lambasted the ]state governor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, for calling for the head of Audu Ogbeh at the height of the recent attacks on Benue by suspected Fulani herdsmen.

Agada said the attacks on Ogbeh by Ortom's praise singers were uncalled for because the governor was probably at a motor park in Gboko, Makurdi or Gbajimba when the elder statesman was Minister of Communications in the 80s when Alhaji Shehu Shagari held sway.


Chief Agada stated this in the early hours of Saturday via his social media platform while reacting to the alleged rift between governor Ortom and Ogbeh over the recent alleged Fulani herdsmen attacks on two communities in Benue State
The governor had in a meeting accused the Minister of Agriculture of not being truthful to President Muhammadu Buhari on the true state of the attack on the two Benue communities.

Agada questioned why should a failed governor like Ortom mobilize some Benue people against Chief Ogbeh who had fought tooth and nail to bring federal presence to the Benue valley


His words, "I just read one Stephen Akuma describing the trio of Chief Ogbeh, governors Lalong and Bello of Plateau and Kogi States as 'Efulefu'. I don't know the meaning of Efulefu in Tiv language but in my Idoma dialect, an Efulefu is a useless person who is of no value to himself or herself and the society in general. Chief Ogbeh is not by any stretch of imagination fit into Akuma's description above."


Agada recalled that the honourable Minister of Agriculture, Chief Dr. Audu Ogbeh was a senior lecturer with A.B.U. Zaria and later head of department of Murtala College of Arts and Sciences (MUCAS) -now Benue State Polytechnic, before venturing into politics in 1979 on the prompting of his Otukpa people who asked him to contest election into Benue State House Assembly representing Otukpa State Constituency which he won and became the deputy speaker of the house, a position he held till 1981 when President Shehu Shagari appointed him as the cabinet minister of communications and reappointed him again in 1983 after Shagari's re-election.



"The Ortom whom Akuma is struggling to defend was at this time an agbero in the park at various garages in Gboko, Makurdi, Gbajimba etc. Ortom himself acknowledged being lifted by God from the motor park as a garage tout."


Agada who said he has no authority to speak for the two middle belt governors, mentioned in the demeaning post by one Stephen Akuma, noted that "but I know Gov. Ortom cannot equal Gov. Simon Lalong (Mr ALERT) who has been scored higher in terms of salary payment and infrastructural development


Agada declared that the state wage bill as at the time former Governor Suswam left office in 2015 was N2.6b according to the Kpojime Committee report, a committee set up by the Governor Ortom led State government.


The APC chieftain further expressed shocks that the Governor who told them during a stakeholders' meeting that he was saving cost -having reduced numbers of Commissioners from 20 to 13, Advisers from 28 to 15, SSA and SA from over 300 to less than 100 would declare that the salary wage bill for the State grew in geometrics from N2.6 billion to N7.8 billion without any official employment since he came on board as governor of the state.


Agada advised Governor Ortom to halt any attempt to use the Hon. Minister of Agriculture as a scapegoat for his incompetence, stressing that the Agric Ministry under Dr. Audu Ogbeh's watch is the most vibrant ministry in the current dispensation


He urged the governor to as a Christian rise above being the Nyamkiume Nzorov and take the entire Benue as his constituency instead of this tribal and clannish bigotry he is engaged in


"When the Idomas lost over 700 innocent souls in Agatu, the governor never declared mass burial or public holiday to mourn their deaths but as soon as his council ward in Nzorov was involved, it became Benue problem and the president of the republic must be insulted. During the Agatu massacre, Governor Ortom took Governor of Nasarawa State to Agatu in a chopper to convince Agatu people to cede the land to fulani." The statement read in part

Agada accused Governor Ortom of frustrating the Agric Minister's efforts to bringing a lasting solution to the farmers/herdsmen perennial crisis, adding that those excuses meant to persuade Benue workers from asking for their 9-11 months salary arrears are no longer tenable, stating that the governor must go and pay his workers salaries instead of trying to compare himself with Chief Dr. Audu Ogbeh who's known for his competence and integrity.

He made some valid observations but why is it so difficult for us to get right

"because the governor was probably at a motor park in Gboko, Makurdi or Gbajimba when the elder statesman was Minister of Communications in the 80s when Alhaji Shehu Shagari held sway."

If you can't change the past, shape the future

I wonder how we'll do that when we're led by dinosaurs

A Country with a 200+ million population where 65% are under the age of 24 is still being led by relics of the 80s'

Let that sink in next time you are in a fuel queue

A retired motor park tout...

I don't have time for the likes of Ortom, Audu Ogbeh, Buhari and whoever the writer is. They are all failures. My mind is fixed on my PVC and 2019

" Agada questioned why should a failed governor like Ortom mobilize some Benue people against Chief Ogbeh who had fought tooth and nail to bring federal presence to the Benue valley"



Is federal presence same as the activities of the fulani herdsmen

If I can switch roles with ortom for a day, I'll show him how spineless he's been all this while.

Unfortunate the sort of people becoming governor

But seriously I think governor Ortom and Majority of Benue people are more concerned when the Fulanis attack the Tivs than when they attack Idomas.

Very wrong

FunkyAlhaji2015:
I don't have time for the likes of Ortom, Audu Ogbeh, Buhari and whoever the writer is. They are all failures. My mind is fixed on my PVC and 2019

you are wise only if you plan to vote president Buhari once more.

God bless u as u do so..



Drabeey was HERE

You see them they came from same state but different ethnic different objective, different mission,different agenda the major problem confronting Nigeria.

RentedReality:
"because the governor was probably at a motor park in Gboko, Makurdi or Gbajimba when the elder statesman was Minister of Communications in the 80s when Alhaji Shehu Shagari held sway."

If you can't change the past, shape the future

I wonder how we'll do that when we're led by dinosaurs

A Country with a 200+ million population where 65% are under the age of 24 is still being led by relics of the 80s'

Let that sink in next time you are in a fuel queue

yeah because the old are not citizens and have no right to elective or selective positions in the country. Anofia.

The both of them are actually useless touts!

Enice:
yeah because the old are not citizens and have no right to elective or selective positions in the country. Anofia.

You spend 80% of your time here criticising and fighting others

I proffer that we need younger leaders if we truly seek change

You call me a bush animal for my efforts

Well done

This is not the time for the people of Benue state to start fighting each other. This is the time for them to come together as brothers and fight their common enemy in unison. If they refuse to fight together as brothers, they will all perish together as fools.

Nobody has the liver to criticize buhari directly. Orton is a coward so he puts the blame on docile ogbeh whom the Fulani's will soon dump and his idoma brothers will reject when the time comes

Hmmm..." EFULEFU" Nairalanders take note!!!

All i have to say is that the dullard Daura cow must be sent packing by 2019.

RentedReality:


You spend 80% of your time here criticising and fighting others

I proffer that we need younger leaders if we truly seek change

You call me a bush animal for my efforts

Well done

I spend 80% of my time on nairaland! Come on check my profile. I hardly comment on nairaland this days except on cases like this when I am irritated to my bone marrow. Nairaland political section has been taken over by kids, bigots, traibalists and unreasonable opposition to the government.

The Tivs have made it possible for this Agada to insult their sensitivity today by voting overwhelmingly for Alhaji Buhari when he Agada and his Idoma brothers voted for GEJ. Alhaji Buhari picked them who saw nothing good in him (Buhari) and appointed as minister at the detriment of the Tivs who voted him in. Today, an Agada relatively unknown before the 2015 election has come up to insult our collective sensitivity at a time like this because we've put food in his mouth. Why will Audu Ogbeh be talking about cattle colony in a state like Benue moreso at a time like this?

seunmsg:
This is not the time for the people of Benue state to start fighting each other. This is the time for them to come together as brothers and fight their common enemy in unison. If they refuse to fight together as brothers, they will all perish together as fools.

But who is this their common enemy? Buhari or Fulani herdsmen

OritaIbadan:

But who is this their common enemy? Buhari or Fulani herdsmen

The murderous herdsmen.

Ortom is a failed governor and he is deploying divisive tactics to attract public sympathy to his government.....His anti-grazing law is meant to malign the fulanis who have coexisted with the tivs and idomas in benue for many years and why would they now take up arms against anyone?

Because Ortom has failed to notch up the infrastructural level of the state and deliver on his electoral promise, he came up with a useless law to create disunity in the state; does it mean it's only fulani people that engage in cattle business and there are no farmers amongst them? And does it mean there are no herdmen among tiv and idoma people?...so what's his problem with Fulani-herdsmen when indeed we also have tiv-herdsmen and idoma-herdsmen?

Go to benue, there is no road project to show in the three years of Ortom government; no structured transportation system instead the state is characterised by "okada and keke napep" everywhere; no flyover; no hospital; he's owing workers salaries and recent Waec results have shown benue state as one of the worst performing; benue under Ortom is poor in IGR generation and depend solely on federal allocation. Instead Audu Ogbeh should be commended for bringing prosperity to yam farmers in benue and he appears to be taking shine off the state government from Abuja. So Ortom had to come up with an anti-grazing non-sense pretending to be contributing to the lot of the farmer. Let Ortom show what he has done for benue farmers other than anti-grazing lies.....This is exactly the point Governor Lalong of Plateau state was insinuating.

So what do you expect a sinking governor with this kind of performance to do knowing that another election is approaching? This explains his shameful tactics of using anti-grazing law to cause chaos in an otherwise peaceful state....He doesn't want benue people to ask questions hence he created a situation that would put them in a mourning mood and kept blaming the federal government and attracting public sympathy. The innocent blood he has spilled will judge him.

moto park tout and barrow pushers goes hand in hand o.....is it why he gave them wheel barrow in the state

Divide and rule them, they’re unsophisticated and primitive.

Sarcasm

If this country is not a shithole, why people like Buhari Audu Ogbeh of the 80s' still be ruling us in this 21st century. When are we going to become the "leader of tomorrow" as we were told years back, the young are no longer growing but have grown