By Nathaniel Ikyur
On March 22, 2021, Mahmud Jega took on the Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom, not sparing him in any way. The former Deputy Editor in Chief of Daily Trust joined others to doubt the governor on the herdsmen attack on his farm in Makurdi, the Benue State capital. He went further to make mockery of the entire incident.
For about two decades plus that Jega worked at Daily Trust newspapers, he used his back page column to maintain some level of dignity. He came across as one, whose judgements on topical national issues in the country can be trusted. His weekly ‘sermons’ on politics and governance in Nigeria were admired. And he began to put on the semblance of a shinning lettered brain, at least in the northern states. Infact, he didn’t openly display any partisanship, or maybe it didn’t catch our attention. But that’s not my worry here. We all know that every human being is a political animal.
In his twelve paragraph diatribe against Governor Samuel Ortom, Mahmud displayed, not only gross ignorance but showed that he’s been bitten by the ethnic and religious bug to the point of not knowing how to weigh in on issues with the right deconstructive mindset. If not so, how can he turn logic on its head by falsifying informations against Governor Ortom just so as to paint the governor black in the eyes of the sponsors of the armed herdsmen who have been terrorising Benue state? Thank God Jega admitted, albeit grudgingly that there are bandits in the first place. If not, I would have asked him how his Zamfara state neighbours are faring. Or better still, the Kaduna and Niger states experiences.
Here in Benue, like in other states of the federation, it’s been an uneasy calm, both in the hands of armed Fulani herdsmen and local militia. In the beginning when Governor Ortom spoke, most Nigerian leaders never believed him. It was obvious, from the benefit of hindsight, that the rest of the leaders were living in denial of the truth.
At no time did Governor Ortom or his media aides say the governor was in the comfort of his bulletproof car when the herdsmen fired at him in an assassination attempt. At no time did the governor say he ran for “two kilometres.” Never. The governor repeatedly told newsmen that he was attacked after he had gone round, inspecting his farm with his security details in tow. And that he ran for about one and a half kilometres on foot not in the convoy of his cars.
Therefore, Mahmud Jega’s piece, ‘Crying Wolf When it Could be Squirrel’ of March 22, 2021 is filled up with a mixture of unintelligible and anarchist tendencies in equal proportions. There’s clear evidence that this Jega has paucity of thoughts. It is evidenced in his puerile and assine reasoning and twisted logic which has shown that he is in deed, a badly conceived writer who should never be taken seriously.
In Jega’s bid to pour out invective, and sway the public against Governor Ortom, he left so many gaps in his article. Let me just highlight the element of anarchy inherent in this. One, Jega is incensed that Governor Wike sounded out a germane warning to a nation already tottering menacingly and on the brink of war and disintegration. Wike’s warning is pointblank and potentious. For all patriotic Nigerians, it is common knowledge now, and everyone knows this that Nigeria is in grave danger of disintegration. The sounds of drums of war are loud enough. That, apart from the 1966 disagreements that led to the civil war, Nigeria has never been pushed to the precipice such as has been done by President Muhammadu Buhari’s Fulanization agenda. And this is where Jega is coming from and with a disposition of an ostrich.
It is a sad commentary that Jega would go to the extent of listing several distinguished people that were variously assassinated in Nigeria without the country coming to its end. It clearly shows that he is not only a poor student of history, but his endorsement of anarchy as national ethos is reprehensible.
How would any one, who occupied a sensitive position as the head of an influential news medium that influences Nigerians display such emptiness? It shows that Jega has no modicum of patriotism in him which is why he’s advocating for assassinations against major state actors because there won’t be any major consequences. Is this a proof of the Nigeria’s invincibility? Not at all.
In case Jega the journalist, columnist is not knowledgeable, Franz Ferdinand and his wife Sophie in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. Right here in Africa, the Rwandan genocide that lasted between April 7 and July 15, 1994 was triggered by the assassination of President Juvenal Habaryimana on 14 April 1994. Even though there was internecine war which had been festering in Rwanda since 1990, fought between the Rwandan Armed Forces which represented the country, and the rebel Rwandan Patriotic Front, RPF. In December 2010, the Arab spring was sparked off following Mohammed Bouazizi’s self immolation in protest of Police corruption and ill treatment. Many more examples abound.
So you see Malam Mahmud Jega, history is very instructive for humans whenever attention is paid to it. It is therefore not because Governor Ortom is more important than all the people that you have happily listed to have been assassinated in Nigeria without any iota of consequences. It is however sadistic on your part to want to pour iced water on Governor Wike’s early warning signs to the nation. Jega should know by now know that Wike is far more knowledgeable and sensitive to the currents of history in Nigeria than what you could ever muster an insight to know.
It is rather unfortunate that we’ve elevated religious and ethnic sentiments, creating cleavages along these dangerous faultlines to the detriment of our collective interest as a nation. In doing this, we’re gradually destroying our communnality. We’re are blinded by incurable partisanship and religiosity as such we don’t know where we’ve gotten it wrong and what we need to do to retrace our steps. As we speak, Nigeria is bleeding through the activities of Fulani herdsmen, armed local militia warlords who have found themselves, comfort zones in all parts of the country.
For Governor Ortom, he can never be cowed into submission. And like he has consistently maintained, Ortom should be seen more as a solution to the Nigerian crises. He speaks truth to help provide the roadmap to recovery. Ortom believes in one indivisible Nigeria. A Nigerian free from injustice and one whose leaders embrace equity and fairness in their dealings with the people. This is what he has continued to shout from Benue.
So, even with his fledgling writing skills, Mahmud Jega has ended up displaying gross ignorance on the very basic issues of Nigeria and World Contemporary History, preferring rather to hoist the flag of a religious warlord whose interests are covered within the confines of a group bent on conquering and dominating others. This is what Governor Ortom has confronted head on and without apologies.
▪︎ Ikyur is the Principal Special Assistant on Media to the Governor of Benue State.
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CRYING WOLF WHEN IT COULD BE A SQUIRREL
BY Mahmud Jega
March 22, 2021
The most engaging story in Nigeria at the weekend was the reported attack by gunmen on Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom’s convoy. The governor was out in the countryside on Saturday morning, inspecting a farm on Tyo-Mu-Abetse-Gboko Road in Makurdi Local Government, when gunmen opened fire at his convoy. No one was killed and no one sustained injuries, for which we offer thanks to God. The governor said he ran for two kilometres, which was ill-advised because he could have run straight into the bandits’ hands.
Ortom moved very fast to politicize the incident. He said it was an assassination attempt, which is not certain because these days, a lot of motorists travelling on our highways get shot at without the attackers knowing who is in the vehicles. Ortom went beyond that and alleged that it is Fulani militiamen, the biggest bogeymen in modern Nigeria, that shot at him. Last week when I drove on the Abuja-Kaduna highway, I was full of fears that someone will shoot at me even though I am a grandson of pastoralists.
Several questions to ask Ortom. From inside his gubernatorial jeep and in a flash of a second, how could he tell that the attackers were “militia herders” when Benue State, in particular, has been infested with bandit gangs for many years, including the most notorious one led by the late Gana? Ortom said they wore black, which is a rare attire among Nigerian criminals because in most cases, victims of attacks on highways attest that the attackers were dressed in army camouflages.
Even Ortom’s account that the attackers numbered about 15 need not be believed. People in traumatic situations almost always exaggerate the number of their attackers. When the prominent Muslim cleric Sheikh Albani was ambushed and killed in Zaria in 2014, his student who was with him in the car said 20 men ambushed them and were firing from all directions. The police later determined that only two men did the firing, but it must have sounded to the man in the car like a lot more people were firing.
Ortom’s main reason for saying militia herders did it was not because he positively identified them but because, since 2017 when he signed a law banning open cattle grazing, he has regarded himself as the bulwark against alleged Fulanisation of the Middle Belt. He reckoned, with some reason, that he could be the target of an attack. More immediately, he said leaders of Miyetti Allah Kautal Haure met in Yola the day before and marked him for assassination. He attributed this information to “intelligence” that he received, quite possibly from a source that was trying to ingratiate himself with the governor by feeding on his fears. Miyetti Allah itself is an urban-based NGO with uncertain influence over the endemically rural pastoralists.
Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike then upped the ante by implying that the Federal Government sent gunmen to kill Ortom. That fact that the Federal Government has not killed people much more threatening to it than Ortom, was lost on Wike. He said the Federal Government [read: President Buhari] would be held responsible if Ortom is killed, and also that such an event will be the end of Nigeria. The fact that Nigeria did not end with the killing of tens of thousands of people by criminals over the years was also lost on Wike.
It is demagoguery of the highest order to rush to blame a whole community and the Federal Government for an incident that is quite common place in Nigeria, without waiting for a police investigation, as the opposition PDP more sedately called for. Even when the attackers are apprehended, thorough interrogation is required to establish if anyone sent them or if it is the “new normal” banditry in Nigeria.
Ortom is not even the first Governor of Benue State to be attacked on the highway. In March 2004, then Benue Governor George Akume’s convoy was attacked on the highway in Nasarawa State. Former Nigeria Airways managing director Andrew Agom was killed while sitting beside Akume in the governor’s car. Although some allusion was made at the time to the inter-communal conflict involving the Tiv in southern Nasarawa State, subsequent police investigation indicated, if I remember right, that the bandits did not know who they fired at. This was also before the age of the Fulani herder bogeyman.
Then also, there have been many high-profile assassinations in Benue State in recent times, most recently of Dr. Terkula Suswam, elder brother of the state’s former governor Gabriel Suswam, and of Ortom’s Senior Special Assistant on Security Denen Igbana in 2016. Police even arrested Ortom’s Special Adviser on Special Duties, Arch. Joseph Ikyaagba, as a suspect in that killing.
I do not know who attacked Governor Ortom on Saturday, what the attackers’ motive was and who, if anyone, sent them. I join in urging the police to get to the bottom of this matter and to answer these questions as speedily as possible. No one should cry wolf before it is positively identified. As for Wike, who is known to have the coarsest mouth among top Nigerian officials since Ayo Fayose, he should please reflect carefully before he wishes Doomsday for Nigeria and its 200 million people, in case misfortune befalls one man.
Sardauna was killed. Tafawa Balewa was killed. Akintola was killed. Okotie-Eboh was killed. Maimalari was killed. Kur Mohammed was killed. Victor Pam was killed. Samuel Ademulegun was killed. Ralph Shodeinde was killed. Aguiyi-Ironsi was killed. Fajuyi was killed. Murtala Mohammed was killed. Ibrahim Taiwo was killed. Dele Giwa was killed. Kudirat Abiola was killed. Marshal Harry was killed. Bola Ige was killed. Dikibo was killed. Sa’adatu Rimi was killed. General Shuwa was killed. Ado Bayero was nearly killed. Shehu of Borno was nearly killed. All these people had higher profiles in our national history than Ortom. Only last week, gunmen opened fire at the Emir of Birnin Gwari’s convoy in Kaduna State. Nigeria was not buried due to any of those deaths.
I pray that not one more person should be killed by criminals in Nigeria. But Nigeria should not be plunged into chaos by men rushing to cry wolf when it could have been the work of a squirrel.