Fayose woos Benue governor to PDP

The Ekiti State Governor, Ayodele Fayose, on Thursday asked his counterpart of Benue State, Samuel Ortom to return to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as it appears that his party at the apex level had abandoned him.

Ortom was a chieftain of the PDP until December, 2014, when he left to join the present ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) where he secured the governorship ticket to win the 2015 election as the duly elected governor of Benue State.

Addressing a cross-section of Benue people in Makurdi, Fayose who led a delegation of his cabinet members to condole with his colleague over the new year’s killings of 73 citizens in the state, urged Ortom to move to another party.

"If you enter a vehicle and it broke down on the way and it could no longer carry you again, please, come out of it and look for another vehicle so that you will certainly reach your destination.

"God has even made it very easy such that we have Toyota, Nissan and different other vehicles. So you just enter the one you like. You are a sitting governor and have the first offer of refusal," Fayose said.

The Ekiti governor who said he was moved to tears when he visited the burial site of the 73 victims slain by suspected herders in two local government areas of Guma and Logo, described the killings as ethnic cleansing.

He added, "most states in Nigeria will be on their knees without Benue people coming to assist them. And I want to believe that it is why we have here what I describe as ethnic cleansing.

We must not forget that this country belongs to our fathers’ fathers. Any attempt to dislodge you (Benue) will cause grave consequences for the people that want to dislodge you."

Fayose on that note donated the sum of N10million to assist the state government ameliorate the sufferings of the affected displaced people.

Responding, Governor Ortom, said that if those who were responsible for providing security for the citizens heeded the alert his administration raised earlier, , maybe the people killed would have been alive.

Ortom however emphasised that the killing of the victims would mark a paradigm shift in the history of Nigeria as a country, as he insisted that he remains a member of the APC but would do whatever his people asked him to do.