‘President Buhari does not kill people; he is not a cultist’ – Presidency replies Ortom

Presidential spokesman, Garba Shehu, says President Muhammadu Buhari has no connection with the killing of innocent Nigerians by criminals .

The spokesman was reacting to comments made by the Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom on Wednesday. In an interview on Channels Television, Shehu said “President Buhari does not kill people; he is not a cultist,”

The President’s spokesman also criticised Governor Ortom for his comments on the purported agenda to ‘fulanise’ the country.

“All of the falsehoods he (Ortom) spreads, perhaps speak to his own character rather than that of the President,” he said. “The President’s wish is that open grazing should end, nobody wants it.

“The President has shown extraordinary patience stomaching a lot of the garbage that Governor Ortom has been pouring about him. I am not sure that in the history of this country, there had been any president who would have taken all of the insults that Governor Ortom has been heaping on this President, and on the President’s directive, we have ignored him.”

Before the interview in the evening, Shehu had issued a statement in reaction to the claims by the governor.

“In an attempt to boost his sinking political fortunes, Ortom takes the cheapest and lowest route possible by playing on ethnic themes – and in doing so knowingly causes deaths of innocent Nigerians by inciting farmers against herders, and Christians against Muslims.

Specifically, Ortom stirs up hatred by targeting one single ethnic group in Nigeria – using language reminiscent of the Rwandan genocide.” The statement partly read

A day before Shehu’s interview, Governor Ortom had criticised the present administration and described President Buhari as the worst when it comes to handling security matters.

Governor Ortom, who also featured as a guest on Sunrise Daily on Tuesday, condemned the way in which some critical issues were being managed.

On the attacks by suspected herdsmen, the governor alleged that the President had an agenda to ‘fulanise’ the country.

He added that late former Presidents Shehu Shagari and Umar Yar’Adua, as Nigerian leaders of Fulani extraction, were better than President Buhari in terms of security.