Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has decried the pressure on him to join the 2023 presidential race, stating that his preoccupation for now is to serve the people of Benue.
The governor, in a statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase, yesterday, was reacting to calls on him in the social media to join the 2023 presidential race.
A group, Project Ortomise Nigeria Ortomatically 2023, had called on the governor to throw his hat into the 2023 presidential ring to rescue the nation from insecurity and socio-economic challenges bedevilling the country.
National coordinator of the group, Samuel Onuh, in a Facebook post, had asserted that “Ortom is the only detribalised Nigerian with the political will to reunite all aggrieved ethnic nationalities and rescue the country from the grips of bandits and fundamentalists making lives difficult for the citizens.”
The Guardian gathered that the group was set to mobilise 10 million women, 10 million men and 10 million youths for a march in Abuja to pressurise the governor to come to the nation’s rescue.
But while appreciating the desire of his supporters and other interest groups for him to lead the country, Ortom maintained that the task ahead of him was to provide good governance to Benue people.
“I still have two and half years to complete my mandate as governor and I am committed to greater service of the state,” he said.
MEANWHILE, posters of his Kogi counterpart, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, have flooded Dutse, the Jigawa State capital.
Reports from Jigawa indicate that the Kogi governor’s campaign posters for the presidential race were seen in most of the roundabouts in Dutse.
The Guardian gathered that volunteer youth groups took responsibility of posting such posters at strategic locations in Jigawa.
Apart from electric poles, almost all the streets, among other public buildings, were reportedly decorated with such posters of Bello’s presidential campaign under the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The posters with inscriptions as ‘I am out for national service just to transform Nigeria’ were seen in front of some houses and business premises.
Jigawa APC Chairman, Muhammadu Guri, said: “Though we have not been communicated officially about this development, it is a welcome development, as we support all courageous and committed persons aspiring for an exalted political office.”
