Good news from blessed Benue

Not long ago I dwelt in this column on the governor of Benue State. The topic was what I called “Ortom the tough.” I don’t wish here now to do a review of what I said them. But what I did generally then was to focus positively on what I can now look back and call a whim of a tough governor who was ready to die, if need be, for the genuine cause of the people of Benue State. Governor Samuel Ortom, believe it or not, is blessed as Benue State is blessed as one of our country’s states of blessed people.

Since I said here what I said about the tough, intrepid governor several challenges and temptations have confronted him and he has been confronting these several challenges and temptations. We have seen him on numerous occasions on television talking to President Buhari as he rightly should about the security problems confronting him and the people he is governing in Benue State. Governor Ortom has also been talking tough to the Fulani herdsmen who have been killing his people and burning their farms and villages with the alleged connivance of the central government. Without mincing words, Governor Ortom the blessed has spoken as he should to the Fulani herders terrorizing his people in their blessed land. He is committed and more than committed to wiping out the Fulani marauders from the whole of Benue, the territory of the Tiv and Idoma warriors.

The last time I saw Governor Ortom on television blasting away I really loved him. I was highly proud of him and all the people of Benue. Before his last television appearance we had read the report of his narrow escape from the Fulani herders of killers who had raided the governor’s farm clearly with the intention to murder him as they had murdered several and more than several Benue natives, men and women, and children and unborn children. Governor Ortom escaped because his time had not yet come and because he had not completed and finished his blessed mission. And not long after a Fulani group allegedly owned up to the foray into Governor Ortom’s farm and the failed attempt to kill him. The statement the alleged planners of the attack issued indicated, among other things, that something went wrong with the botched attack at the last minute hence the tough Ortom had his lucky escape.

They warned and proclaimed that the Benue warrior of a governor would not be lucky another day and time. They also warned other persons and people opposing Fulani intruders in our country’s spaces and land to hold their peace otherwise the Fulani would come after them no matter where they are, live and do whatever they do or say whatever they say or plan against the Fulani who vowed (and always vow) to recruit their kith and kin across Africa in their endeavour and will to take over Nigeria. That was a ridiculous moment in our country. Perhaps I should state that, that was one of the ridiculous moments in our country your country our country my country our country that will and must remain our country. Believe it or not, we have spoken. He is hurrying near to duty the real patriotic duty for our fatherland. I sat relaxed and half-amused in my well-equipped laboratory of writing and meditation and contemplation. So Hausa-Fulani brotherhood and inter-ethnic cooperation and romance of ageless ages of master-and-slaves-and-serfs have ceased to be because the chicken has at last come home to roost? So it is the Fulani ethnic nationality that now solely imagines itself and itself only to be the only ethnic scent of the North and of Nigeria? I am still sitting relaxed and half-amused in my well-equipped laboratory.

Now what is the really good news from blessed Benue of blessed brave warriors?  Blessed Governor Ortom the tough has told us in his last cool television announcement and address that he would no longer cry to the complicit central government any time Fulani marauders enter his state again. The good and blessed tough governor would now equip his people to fight back and real hard and fearlessly and fiercely any time those who want to steal their land enter their territory again. It is fight to finish from now henceforth. In fact, the governor has established blessed Benue security outfit whose name matches the security network he has conceived to drive and charm away from their territory those who have been causing the people and their governor murderous stress. Fear or sadness and other negative moods will no longer be known in Benue State. It is fire for fire henceforth. He fully knows and understands the full implications of his new better palaver outfit. I endorse Governor Ortom’s lunch-table or dinner-table group announcement. In my place in the Niger Delta we say that it is iron that we use to slice iron. “Uren owun agba miu uren.” The Itsekiri have survived their mangrove and swamp kingdom over the years through this charming philosophy. Believe me, yours sincerely.

The Benue people and their governor are on the right path. Other people and groups elsewhere should follow their patriotic example if they don’t want to die and perish with a suicidal single-mindedness.

After all, believe or disbelieve it, another civil war, another new war, a new raging war of raging combatants, is in Nigeria now. The people of Benue are reading well the situation. The seventeen Southern governors are now also reading the situation perfectly. The Afenifere people are equally getting ready for what is to come and giving thoughts and further thoughts to their tactics. What is it? “Rapidity is the essence of war”? I leave the Afenifere and their maximal shock and awe tactics to answer the simple question. But whatever they do or not do, whatever they say or do not say, underline the good news that Governor Ortom of Benue State has been chanting of recent. God bless us all! But is this the end of the story? No, no, no. Primate Prophet Theophilus Olabayo is coming out correct after all. I shall recapitulate some of his past pertinent prophecies in the days and weeks ahead. Please watch out. Things don shelle.

Afejuku can be reached via 08055213059.