By Abdullahi M. Gulloma
Abuja
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State alleged yesterday that his predecessor, Mr. Gabriel Suswam equipped some youths with arms when he was the chief executive officer of the state.
Fielding questions from State House correspondents after a meeting with Vice President Yemi Osinbajo over security issues in the state, Ortom said over 600 assorted weapons and ammunition were recovered from over 800 young men who surrendered under the amnesty programme.
He said: “The last dispensation believed in violence. My predecessor and his cohorts believed they could take everything by force and they bought these arms and gave to young men. I am appealing to them to still return those arms.
“Now that the carrot approach of the amnesty programme is over, we will now adopt the stick approach. We are going to pursue them to their homes. Wherever they are, we are going to arrest them and prosecute them. We are going to go after them fully.
“I have postponed the vacation indefinitely. I cannot in any way surrender my state to criminals. I am going to fight them headlong. I am the governor of Benue State, I was duly elected and I have the backing of my people to fight criminals so that we can have a free society to build our economy.
“On security, we just need to strengthen ourselves and fight the criminals that are unleashing terror on our people. We have dedicated the state to God and we trust Him that He will help us. I trusted Him to become governor and I became a governor.
“I am also trusting Him to succeed. By the time I am rounding off my tenure as governor in the next three years, by the grace of God, ignorance, poverty and diseases would have been eradicated in the state.”
