Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has called on elder statesmen and critical leaders in the country not to rest on their oars but to speak up in the face of insecurity confronting the country.
Receiving a delegation from the Victim Support Fund (VSF), led by its Chairperson, Mrs Toyosi Akerele Ogunsiji in Government House, Makurdi yesterday, Ortom made the call following the alarm raised by his Borno State counterpart, Professor Babagana Zulum on the recruitment of more fighters by the Islamic State of West Africa Province (ISWAP) with kid gloves.
Ortom said “I want to lend my voice to what my colleague in Borno State, Prof Babagana Zulum has cried out against the activities of ISWAP in that part of the country.
“The Federal Government should not take this alarm from the threats of ISWAP lightly,” he said.
The Governor further urged the Federal Government to “take proactive steps to send away terrorists from Nigeria so that we can live in peace.
“We can not continue this way. Nigeria deserves more peace than what we have now,” he stated.
Ortom said he had foreseen the danger occasion by the activities of herdsmen since the time he assumed office in 2015.
He called on the government and non-governmental organizations to evolve security strategies that will see the return of Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) back to their ancestral homes without delay to continue with their normal life activities.
According to him, “the strategic support we want now enables our people living in the IDPs to return to their ancestral lands. Our people want to go back to their communities so that they can live their normal lives.”
He said the idea of conducting a mass burial for victims of the January 1st, 2018 killings by militia herdsmen were meant to draw attention to the security situation in the country.
” Leaders at all levels need to speak out against the ills in the country.”
He, however, called on VSF to intensify support in the areas of improved healthcare services to IDPs, upscale its educational activities from primary to secondary education in the camps, support NGOs to continue to render help to the IDPs among others.
Earlier, Mrs Ogunsiji said they were in the state to get more information from the Governor on critical areas VSF can intervene in both short and long term so the organization does not just throw money at the problems confronting the IDPs.
She stated that the visit followed a request by Governor Ortom to the VSF for support to the IDPs, stressing that a visit to the camps has revealed to the team the unhealthy nature of the environment inhabited by the IDPs.
VSF is led by a former Chief of Army Staff, retired General Theophilus Danjuma.
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