Buhari breaks silence on Ortom attack, orders ‘thorough investigation’

President Muhammadu Buhari has condemned the attack on Samuel Ortom, governor of Benue state.

Gunmen suspected to be herdsmen had attacked the governor’s convoy on Saturday at Tyo Mu, along Makurdi-Gboko road.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had accused the president of being silent on the attack.

The PDP had said the silence of the president in the wake of the “attempted assassination” calls for serious concern.

Reacting, the president on Sunday described the attack as unacceptable. He warned that the incident should not be politicised.

“Let there be open and transparent investigation and whoever is linked to it should be caught and be made to face the law,” the president said in a statement by Garba Shehu, his spokesperson.

The president said an attack on any citizen is an attack on all Nigerians.

He also welcomed the deployment of a “high-level team of crack investigators” sent by the police headquarters to the state.

The president called on the police to fish out the perpetrators of the attack and bring them to justice.

“In expressing his sympathies, and that of the government of the federation to Governor Ortom and all Benue indigenes, President Buhari said the unfortunate incident must not be politicized,” Shehu said.