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Tag: Benue

Benue attacks: Bandits pass through Nasarawa, but we do not harbour them – Governor Sule

Governor Abdullahi Sule of Nasarawa State has refuted allegations that his state serves as a haven for criminals, particularly bandits originating from northern regions.

He emphasized that although some bandits may pass through Nasarawa, the state neither shelters nor supports them.

During a live phone interview on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Governor Sule responded to accusations made by Professor Zacharys Anger Gundu, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Mkar, who claimed Nasarawa is home to bandits who launch attacks on communities in Benue.

The governor condemned the remarks as “provocative” and counterproductive, especially coming from an academic.

“We sent a letter to him to withdraw that kind of statement because it will end up creating more problems. I understand he is trying to come and apologise,” Governor Sule stated.

He explained that bandits move through various states in the course of their operations, but this should not imply complicity on the part of those states.

“It’s just like saying someone attacked Lagos through Ogun. Of course, Ogun borders Lagos, but that doesn’t mean Ogun is responsible,” he clarified.

Governor Sule also highlighted that Nasarawa State itself has been a victim of bandit attacks and has taken decisive measures against these criminal groups.

“When I came into office in 2019, we discovered a bandit camp in one of our local governments. I had to visit former President Muhammadu Buhari, who approved a joint operation by air, land, and sea to dislodge them,” he revealed.

He further stressed the ongoing security partnership with Benue State, pointing out that collaboration has been continuous, even during former Governor Samuel Ortom’s tenure.

“These people don’t even need houses. They come in through the bushes, attack, and move on.

“But we also go after them. We are not harbouring anyone,” Governor Sule added.

August 12, 2025
Benue Civil Service Secretariat Not Disability Friendly – IFA

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November 02, (THEWILL) The Inclusive Friends Association (IFA) has decried the unfriendly nature of the Benue State Civil Service Secretariat, Makurdi, in which people living with disability hardly access it on official visits.

The Executive Secretary of IFA, Miss Grace Jerry, made the observation when she led a team of stakeholders on an advocacy visit to the Director General of Benue State Budget and Economic Planning Commission, Dr Jerome Andohol.

On arrival at the Secretariat, Ms Jerry, who was in a wheelchair, was lifted up by members into the Director General’s office due to the lack of RAAPS (walkways), which drew the attention of the government to address the situation.

She informed the DG that Benue is the remaining state in North Central Nigeria yet to domesticate the Disability Act, which is not good enough.

She, therefore, called for budgetary provision for education, health and welfare of people with disability in the state as well as passing the Act to involve them in the scheme of things.

In his remarks, the Special Assistant to the Governor on Disability Matters, Mr Bem Ashe, noted that Governor Hyacinth Alia’s administration is doing well in the area of inclusive governance, assuring to push for the domestication of the law in the state.

Responding, the Director General, Dr Jerome Andohol, said the Benue State Civil Service Secretariat, Makurdi, was built in the 1970s and is undergoing renovation by the present administration, assuring that walkways may be put in place to carry people with disability along to address their challenge.

He stated that so much has been done by the regime of Governor Alia for the disability group in the state, including appointments of their members into office among others.

The Director General who advised the team to extend the advocacy visit to the leadership of the Benue State House of Assembly, assured that the Commission will forward their demand to appropriate quarters for consideration.

Other stakeholders that accompanied IFA on the visit included the media, and disability groups in the state, among others.

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November 2, 2024
Benue: PDP crisis heightens as Ex-Gov, Ortom, state chairman battle suspension saga

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MAKURDI (Sundiata Post) – The crisis rocking the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State has heightened as the suspended party chairman, John Ngbede, yesterday, met to ratify the suspension of the immediate past governor, Samuel Ortom.

Ngbede told newsmen at the party secretariat, Makurdi, that Ortom and his lieutenants were suspended because they wanted to take the party leadership by force.

He alleged that the former governor and his cronies were trying to take the party back to the old order where malpractices held sway.

The state chairman, Sir John Ngbede, the secretary and organising secretary of the party were suspended on August 5, in a letter signed by the party’s Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom, alleging misconduct at the just concluded ward congresses.

But Ngbede dismissed his suspension and that of his officials saying only the national executive committee of the party could suspend him.

“Ordinarily, our tenure expired on August 4, but we are waiting for the directive of the national secretariat. It’s only the state executive committee of the party that can suspend me by virtue of my position as member of the national executive.

“Its true that the former governor was suspended by the state working committee of the party because what we are saying is that we will not allow anyone who thinks he can take the leadership of the party by force.

“The party belongs to the people and we will not allow anyone to take us back to the old order where they will be hijacking voting materials. We should allow people to feel the impact of the congress.

When journalists visited the party secretariat on Tuesday, only the alleged suspended chairman, secretary and organizing secretary were at the secretariat planning to hold a state executive committee meeting where the suspension of the former governor and three others may be ratified.

But the former governor, Ortom, has stated that nobody can suspend him from the party.

Ortom, who spoke through his media aide, Terver Akase, said the suspended chairman had no powers to call for a meeting and that any meeting held without him was null and void.

“Ortom has not been suspended, he is the leader of the party in the State and any meeting that is called or going on without his consent is null and void. The chairman of the party in the State, John Ngbede, the secretary and the Organizing Secretary are on suspension.

“The chairman, secretary and organizing secretary were all suspended by nine out of 13 members. Nine out of 13 is close to 90 percent and so based on the one month suspension, they don’t have the powers to convene meetings at whatever level.

“Ortom has not been suspended because the man who signed that suspension letter was suspended at the time he signed that letter. So he didn’t have the powers to sign any suspension.

“So, whatever meeting they are holding is null and void because they do not have the constitutional rights to convene a meeting of the party.”

He said the PDP in Benue state does not have a faction insisting that Chief Ortom is the leader of the party in the state.

“The chairman, John Ngbede is suspended, his suspension began yesterday, August 5 and it will run for one month. In his place, the acting chairman, Mr. Isaac Mffo who is the Vice Chairman is now the acting chairman of the party.

“If the meeting of the party is to be convened, it should be in consultation with the leader of the party and that meeting will be presided over by the acting chairman of the party.

“So any meeting that is going on and is not called by Isaac Mffo is null and void. I insist that John Ngbede stands suspended from the party. There is freedom of association under the Nigerian constitution, so he can meet with anybody he wants.”

Akase stated that the party has a conflict resolution mechanism and as such advised the purported three suspended state officials to make themselves available before the panel already set up to investigate them.

August 7, 2024
Benue APC: The bitter edge of godfatherism

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One in all the supreme problems of partisan politics in Nigeria is the recurrence of vitality mongering, compelled godfatherism and the poverty of restraints wielded by some so-known as occasion strongmen. The tendency for these strongmen to impose candidates, trample as soon as in a whereas structures and contain themselves into establishments has been the bane of occasion supremacy. From the days of Lamidi Adedibu, the strongman of Ibadan politics, to the failed strive by Adams Oshiomhole to play god over Edo politics, so-known as occasion solid men own viewed blended fortunes. Nevertheless, this has now not stopped other would-be stalwarts from touring this thorny route. The swift fallout between the instant-previous governor Nyesome Wike (now minister of the Federal Capital Territory, FCT) and his political godson, Governor Simi Fubera, of Rivers dispute, can own to aloof be a ready example of the fruitlessness of solid-arm politics. But if there could be any disease amongst Nigerian politicians that has no cure, it’s selective amnesia.

The topic in Benue dispute, where the governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, is dealing with, possibly, the supreme trial of his faith and politics typifies the typical Nigerian occasion politics. The insinuation in Makurdi, the Benue dispute capital, and all the scheme in which by scheme of the dispute’s All Progressives Congress (APC) circle is that George Akume, Secretary to Govt of the Federation (SGF), a particular person monumental in the art of politics Nigeriana, having served as governor of Benue dispute on the platform of Nigeria’s main opposition Peoples Democratic Celebration (PDP), is on the heart of Governor Alia’s political troubles.

It’s rumoured that Governor Alia fell out of favour with the SGF over the emergence of Hyacinth Dajoh as Speaker of the Benue Instruct Home of Meeting by scheme of a totally democratic job. This, eventuality, used to be acknowledged now to not own gone down well with Akume, whose anointed candidate used to be his aged media aide, Backy Orpin. The pollused to be so keenly contested that Dajoh acquired with simplest two votes. Indication that effort used to be brewing for the APC used to be the depth of animosity that performed out without extend after the election fair exact on the flooring of the assembly as occasion stalwarts went conclude to fisticuffs.

Things acquired to a head when Governor Alia made up our minds, like many other governors, to exchange 21 out of the 23 fraudulently elected native govt chairmen with caretaker chairmen. To the unpracticed witness, the flee abet registered by the 23 APC native govt chairmen, accusing the governor of abandoning stakeholders to strike out alone, also can seem like a accurate call for occasion supremacy. But, undoubtedly, the resolution by the APC native govt chairmen used to be a well-rehearsed space to discredit the governor.

The deceptive articulate of righteous indignation, when the native govt chairmen appear to feign anguish over the vogue by scheme of which the governor is working the dispute without carrying them along despite being elected on the platform of the APC fair exact from the inception of his administration, used to be merely a smokescreen. It used to be a calculated strive to initiate plugging away at Governor Alia’s point of curiosity on governance. As subsequent attacks on the actual person of the governor would articulate, plenty of these so-known as APC leaders were performing a script, the director, an finished flesh presser, pulling the leash from the nation’s capital.

What’s going down in Benue dispute is vitality mongering in its most used form. The governor of the dispute is legally the leader of the occasion. That is the tradition of Nigeria’s politics. Yet, many expected Governor Alia to enable himself to be steamrolled into submission by political thugs right to you already know who. It used to be, because of the this truth, now not only exact-looking when plenty of schemes were subsidized to give the APC in Benue dispute the semblance of a occasion in crisis fair exact to separate into factions, following the removal of Austin Agada as the occasion chairman in line along with his suspension from the occasion by his Ehaje ward.

When Austin Agada used to be restrained from parading himself as APC chairman by a court docket of competent jurisdiction, one would own understanding the actual person will admire the judiciary and take his remedy without grievance. But that used to be now not the case. Backed by Abuja cover, Agada persevered to parade himself as chairman long after the occasion’s executive committee had appointed Benjamin Omakolo as performing occasion chairman.

Governor Alia demonstrated astute leadership when he outlawed political rallies in the dispute in the face of what used to be poised to be a bloody clash between the Agada led faction of the occasion and the Omakolo leadership. It must always be acknowledged that Agada has shown that he’s completely exact a puppet nodding along to the ludicrous machinations of the Abuja big man. The manner by scheme of which Agada allowed himself to be used against the progress of Benue dispute betrays whatever claims he thinks he has over the occasion that introduced Governor Alia to vitality.

Alia is the goose laying APC’s golden egg in Benue dispute. And it’s fair exact fair exact-looking that as a change of Agada following him to make certain his occasion stays with a direct in the typical scheme of issues, he’s burning bridges, and we all know who comes out on top. On this admire, Edo dispute readily involves mind. Now not even Adams Oshiomhole’s national leadership of the APC used to be ample muscle to oust Governor Godwin Obaseki when he inferior-carpeted to the PDP.

I imagine it bears reminding the Abuja godfather that it used to be Alia’s personality and now not necessarily the APC’s that took the polls far from aged Governor Samuel Ortom and the PDP. I surprise what would turn out to be of APC if Alia were to take a dignified poke away of the occasion. Agada and his co-vacationers have to ponder this and other potentialities forward of staying on his puppeteer state to nowhere. I be half of the legion of Benue of us calling for a terminate of hostilities. It’s time to enable our governor point of curiosity on governance.

Mubarak, a public affairs analyst, writes from Abuja.

March 24, 2024

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