''APC will lose in Benue if it fields Samuel Ortom as its governorship candidate'' Adams Oshiomhole

Days after Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom, defected from the ruling APC to PDP, the chairman of APC, Adams Oshiomole, says Ortom has no electoral value and would have caused the party a great loss if he was presented as their governorship candidate in the 2019 election.

Oshiomole made this known in an interview with newsmen at the party headquarters in Abuja yesterday July 27th.

The APC chairman said that leaders of the party in Benue state have given him and the national leadership, cogent reasons why Ortom was a colossal failure and his defection should be celebrated.

Oshiomhole said apart from his failure to pay salaries, despite receiving billions of naira as bailout from the Federal Government, he was also trying to gain political capital from the Fulani killings in his state.

“From the point of view of our leaders in Benue State, their position was clear. They believed that fielding Governor Ortom on the APC platform in the 2019 governorship election could only lead to electoral defeat for a number of reasons. They reminded us that in spite of the allocations accruing to the state and in spite of the bailout, amounting to over N20bn, which they had received in two instalments of N10bn each, and in addition to the huge sums of money that the state collected from the Paris Club Refund, Governor Ortom has not, and is not paying salaries to workers as and when due.

Oshiomole added that the Ortom had the habit of recruiting people that have been linked to killings in the state.

For any man of honour, if an appointee of government is involved in heinous crimes, including killing, that should be enough for a governor to worry. Instead, Governor Ortom played up the ethnic dimension of criminality, whereas in truth, some of those who have been killed were not killed by Muslims; they were killed by Christians of Benue State origin, including those he employed. So, Ortom’s incapacity to manage it and even his willingness to seek to make political capital of the death of the Benue people is most unfortunate because I believe that even in politics, there should be a level of morality.”