Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, yesterday regretted that despite the milestones recorded by his administration, he still receives insults from people of the state after ‘they drink beer to stupor from morning till dawn’. The governor said he has received a lot of criticism, blackmail and intimidation in recent times for acquiring a lot of landed properties across the length and breadth of Makurdi metropolis and warned against persecuting people he called “anointed leaders” like him. He spoke when he commissioned the mega Pentecostal Church, Remnant Christian Network Embassy in Makurdi, the state capital.
“If you go round Makurdi Town, our people start drinking beer from 9am and some from there, they will go to sleep, and they come back and insult the governor for not helping them to add value to their lives. “Every new building that you see in Benue State, they say that it’s Samuel Ortom that is building; he is stealing and doing that. “In politics, people say a lot of things: blackmail, insults and intimidation, you face all sorts of things no matter what you do with the people, they always find something around.
“In 2017, I concluded that I will never contest the second term as allowed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and because of the insults I received from Benue people and how I was vilified, even some members of the church joined forces with those who do not know God. “I was pained in my heart and I said God, you brought me and I said I was not going to contest in the 2019 election and that night, God rebuked me and told me I am not done with you. “I brought you, I have not rejected you when people reject you, I am still with you”.
“I fasted for three months, I did a case study on the life of Moses in the book of Exodus in the Bible and at the end, God told me, don’t be like Moses who could not get to the Promise Land, have faith in me and I will see you to the end”.
