Benue people are in a straight. They are in a dire straight for that matter. Contrary to Biblical injunctions not to follow false prophets, we have followed the talks of deceivers, whose campaign talks dripped with honey. The Promised Land they spoke about has proven to be nothing short of a return into the deserts of Egypt. The fragrant bread they promised turned out to be stones.
It has been six months since Samuel Ortom rode on the wind of change of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to become Benue state governor and one will not be out of place to say the people already rue their choice. In this short space the taste of what is to come in the month ahead is already distinct on the palate. More salaries are being owed, more loans have been taken, more people are now out of employment, more time has been wasted on irrelevant probes, more despair pervades the land and more people go to bed and wake up without hope in the heaven that Ortom promised. In the same space of time under the once prophetic candidate, fewer projects have been initiated, fewer people have found cause to smile and fewer reasons exist for Benue people to be optimistic.
Confronted with the prospect of been handed a report card that will inevitably confirm him as a failure, Ortom apparently struck on the idea of organising the kind of show that persecutors of Christian organised in the Roman arenas in those days. Only this time, Ortom’s gladiators find a victim in his immediate predecessor, Gabriel Suswam, who is being lanced from all directions without the benefit of shielding himself from a bloodthirsty horde.
This desperate attempt to criminalize Suswam, using multiple probe panel in addition to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) at the federal level, has been carefully thought out as the only achievement that Ortom can use to distract the people from his dismal record in the short space he has been at the helm of affairs. The governor’s desperation is further heightened upon the realisation that his caretaker administration is living on borrowed time as the Appeal Court by every legal standard is bound to send him out of the Government House.
Suswam may not be a saint but this does not make him the monster that detractors are today trying to make people believe he is. For me, the former Benue state governor, Gabriel Suswam remains a role model even at this height of his travails, in some instances at the very hands of people groomed for greater role. The sense of equanimity with which he has handled these serial betrayals is consistent with the Suswam that I know as a man of impeccable morals, who not only preaches the gospel of forgiveness and tolerance as set out in the Bible but also lives his sermons. He stands out in contrast to the incumbent whose term of self worship included the mandatory imitation by loyalists and followers who must adorn his choice trademark of multicolour cap that depicts a man of multiple moralities. As one who Biblically limps between options, he is a Christian in the morning and idol worshipper in the night . Today he is APC after once describing President Muhammadu Buhari as a terrorists during the Presidential campaign during his PDP days, who knows what is to come tomorrow?
The peace that Suswam preaches and lives was instrumental to him pressuring his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue state not to go to court in the aftermath of the manipulation of the votes in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Suswam’s position was for the PDP to allow him and other citizens of the state to enjoy the APC mandate. Unfortunately, like the apostles under inquisitors, the people he negotiated this peace for have turned around to start chasing members of this party with the sword.
It is a fortunate thing that members of the PDP, in their quest to deepen democracy persisted in testing the 2015 governorship election in Benue state before the courts. This is why the Appeal court sitting in Makurdi must come to the rescue of Benue People and save them from the reign of these gods who like the sons of Scaba ( those who came with photocopied powers and the devil challenge them when he said, Jesus we know, John we know but who are you?) that have opened the gates of hell on the people.
The judges on the appeal panel must act like act those fearless Taraba judges who told the PDP that the end of party’s impunity has come and that no one individual can sit either in Abuja or Makurdi to allocate party flags but through the instrument of rule of law. Admittedly the APC has agreed that it never conducted any primaries, the facts are on the street that the governor had not resigned from the PDP even after winning the general elections as evident abound that he still held meetings with Mr Agbo Emmanuel, the state chairman of the PDP.
The people who today masquerade as missionaries on relief mission are genuinely the ones that destroyed Benue state since the return to civil rule in 2007. Now they are back again, only this time they are higher up in the national echelon, and better position to do damages to the people of the state. The only difference is that this time they used the worst form of campaign that the most heartless man in the church won’t dare: for this band of men, the name of God and Bible quotations have become depreciated currencies that are thrown around at all rallies and gatherings to deceive our people. More than in the Suswam’s years, they have become more vicious.
They have succeeded in deceiving everyone and led the Christian community of Benue people to the service of false gods that live inside Ghana Must Go bags while acquiring new concubines with the bail out funds meant to alleviate the suffering of the poor. Ortom and his band of missionaries will continue trying to delude Benue people with their falsehood and that is when the people should set themselves free on the strength of what is written in the Book of Jeremiah 23:16 “ This is my warning to my people, says the Lord Almighty. Don’t listen to these false prophets when they prophesy to you, filling you with futile hopes. They are making up everything they say. They do not speak for me!” (TLB).
The old missionaries came with the Bible in one hand and their conquering guns in the other hand. Ortom and his people came just like the Portuguese missionaries; so Benue state like the Tiv of old must go for the Church of Christ in Sudan (NKST) to reclaim this land as we look up to the Appeal Court for healing.
God, where are you?
Hyande is the Speaker of the Members of Public, a group of common citizens in Benue State.
