Apparently Benue people are in a bind. In as little as under seven months<\/p>\n
since the general elections they have since discovered that they abandoned
\na leader and went for a ruler. In a little over five months since the May
\n29 swearing-in of a new government they have discovered they were sold a
\npipe dream \u00a0only the beneficiaries of the change they sought are still
\nin denial about the false promises sold to the people. The tyres finally
\nmet the road and the only response available upon the rude awakening to
\nthe harsh reality that is governance is for the new government to engage
\nin an endless blame game; still God is involved.<\/p>\n
Akin to the children of Israel for whom the journey of a few days became a
\nforty year sojourn on account of murmuring, for Benue people the movement
\nfrom Egypt to Israel as promised by the governor Samuel Ortom led APC
\ngovernment now has no end in sight. As opposed the story of the Israelis
\nhowever, the murmuring is not coming from the people being led to the
\npromise land but rather it is those who promised them paradise on earth
\nthat are now singing another song upon the realisation that they made
\ntheir projections while in a dreamland as opposed to being prompted by a
\nvision. The difference being that one has to be asleep and in fantasy land
\nfor a dream while vision would entail being fully aware and strategic.
\nThe journey promised Benue people thus looks set to be prolonged from four
\nyears to four centuries now that has become clear that there was no clear
\ncut vision on how to progress on the path set out by the previous
\nadministrations hence the
\nresort to murmuring and name calling.<\/p>\n
Instead of facing the reality on ground, Ortom, like Nebuchadnezzar as
\nnarrated in the Book of Daniel 2:2 (KJV) rather decided to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153call
\nmagicians, and the sorcerers, and the Chaldeans, for to shew the king his
\ndreams\u00e2\u20ac. These jobbers, of whom there is no shortage of modern day
\nequivalents, have further compounded the problems that the incumbent Benue
\nstate governor is grappling with by encouraging him to fight his
\npredecessor when there is scarcely any indication to justify such action.<\/p>\n
Perhaps, what Ortom needs is a modern day Daniel as was in the Biblical
\ntimes. The modern Daniel should be someone who can wake the governor up
\nfrom his slumber and dream to smell the global economic challenge and the
\nlimitations it is imposing on governments across the world. Even President
\nMuhammadu Buhari admitted that the federal government has to strain to pay
\nsalaries while as many as 27 seven states were unable to pay salaries
\nhence the need for a bailout.<\/p>\n
Instead of waking up to this reality of national and global economic
\nupheaval, Ortom, egged on by his band of minions and charlatans has
\nresorted to a campaign of witch hunt against his predecessor, Mr Gabriel
\nSuswam. Of course the campaign is aimed at whipping up a murmuring frenzy
\namong the state indigenes with Suswam being labelled as the architect of
\nthe state\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s precarious situation. The probe panels set up to hound the
\nformer governor thus look like an attempt to make his scapegoating
\nofficial.<\/p>\n
The desperation goes a step further as the incumbent government was
\nfingered in using a proxy to petition Suswam at the Economic and Financial
\nCrimes Commission (EFCC).
\nSuswam was thus compelled to respond to the spurious allegation in a
\nstatement in which he unequivocally defended his tenure in office. His
\ndefence definitely left the Samuel Ortom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s administration looking
\nunserious, out of touch and misguided at best and fraudulent and
\nmischievous to all intent. The gist of the defence put up by Suswam was
\nthat the Ortom government and is deliberately manipulating figures to
\npresent a different narrative particularly as they pertain to the state
\ndebt profile. It also gave an insight into how the present government
\nresorted to abusing the rights Benue indigenes to employment on account
\nthat they were recruited by the former administration. A further
\nrevelation from the statement indicated that Ortom and his band are
\ndesperate to explain away the non-execution of capital projects as the
\nresult of the debt left by his predecessor even when it is glaring that he
\nhas the least clue on how to move the state to the next
\nlevel. The extent of cluelessness can be easily gauged from the fact that
\nin four months, Ortom has borrowed more than Suswam borrowed in four
\nyears, yet these characters still managed to have the bravery to make
\nbaseless accusations; still God is involved.<\/p>\n
The rejoinder by Ortom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Special Adviser on Media and ICT,Tahav Agerzua
\nwas a weak attempt at propaganda as it completely lacked substance to
\naddress the concern of the common masses at whose mercy the governor cried
\nin Otukpo during the electioneering campaigns. The response is a
\nconfirmation that the new government is stuck in the past without a vision
\nas to how to proceed. More efforts went into name calling and attempts to
\ntarnish and rubbish the person of Suswam than addressing the glaring lack
\nof depth on the part of Ortom government as identified in Suswam\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s
\ngovernment.<\/p>\n
In Tahav Aagerzua\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s words \u00e2\u20ac\u0153(Suswam) subscribed to condescending terms,
\nascribing to himself attributes of deity and those who challenge his
\nactions as irreverent supplicants\u00e2\u20ac, but discerning minds know that it is
\nOrtom, who like Nebuchadnezzar, has mentally erected a towering image of
\nhis overblown ego to which he is forcing the people of Benue state to
\nworship. The worship in this sense included the on-going manipulation of
\nthe populace into a Suswam bashing frenzy with the sole aim of diverting
\nattention from a government that has resigned itself to the reality that
\nit can never properly understand the intricacy of governance not to talk
\nof excelling at running the state optimally.<\/p>\n
This understanding would have been useful towards the realisation of the
\nnew Benue vision on which the people of the state were sold before
\nOrtom\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s emergence. But now the Nebuchadnezzar that Ortom has become
\ncannot deliver on this promise he is looking for the scapegoat and he
\nerroneously thought he found one in his predecessor, Mr Gabriel Suswam. In
\nexecuting his campaign of calumny, Ortom, even in the early months of his
\nadministration has descended to the level of wallowing on the ground and
\nin the wild as Nebuchadnezzar did in his later years.<\/p>\n
Benue people did not expect this kind of leadership or a governor that
\nthrives on mudslinging and wallowing in the mud all in the name of getting
\nback at his predecessor. The challenge on ground is for Ortom to beat the
\nrecord of his predecessor in the real sense and not wasting scarce state
\nresources and limited time in a bid to even whatever scores he thinks he
\nhas to settle. The deal he promised the people was to get them to the
\npromise land and now it is glaring that he utterly lacks the capacity to
\nstick to his own side of the deal. Perhaps, as in the Orwellian Animal
\nFarm, it is time Ortom admits to Benue people that there is no Sugarcandy
\nMountain.<\/p>\n
Tarka is a retired educationist and writes from Wanune, Tarka Local
\nGovernment Area of Benue State.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Apparently Benue people are in a bind. In as little as under seven months since the general elections they have since discovered that they abandoned a leader and went for…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43380","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles-opinions"],"yoast_head":"\n