Ortom: No going back on decision to quit APC

July 20, 2018 9:33 pm

Pic.10. Gov. Ortom briefs President Buhari on security situation in Benue Pic.10. Gov. Samuel Ortom answering questions from State House correspondents after briefing President Muhammadu Buhari on the security situation in Benue State, at the Presidential Villa in Abuja on Tuesday (9/1/18). 00148/9/1/2018/Sumaila Ibrahim/BJO/NAN

Samuel Ortom, governor of of Benue state, says there is no going back on his decision to leave the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Speaking when he received members of OnTiv Professionals Association in Abuja on Friday, the governor said he would take the next step in his political career in the next few weeks.

This comes a day after the governor denied saying he is leaving the APC.

“I can assure you and the good people of Benue that there is no going back on my decision to exit from the APC,” the governor told his visitors.

“At the appropriate time in the next few weeks, I would make my next move public.”

ORTOM: I HAVE BEEN GIVEN RED CARD IN APC … (NO) I’M STILL IN APC

The governor first hinted he would leave the party on Wednesday after swearing in one of his appointees.

He had declared himself a “free man”.

The governor had said: “As for party, I have been given red card and I’m outside the pitch. So, if I have been given red card and I’m standing outside, I’m a free man.

“So I don’t know what will happen next but I’m waiting. If others approach me, then I will tell the Benue people that I’m joining another football club. I’m a child of destiny and it’s only God that will decide what I will be.”

OSHIOMHOLE THEN STEPPED IN

A day after he made the comment, he met with Adams Oshiomhole, national chairman of the party, after which he said he appreciates the chairman’s intervention and hoped “we would be able to resolve the matter of differences and this is the funny thing about politics.”

He had said: “I am here in APC, a member of APC, I am still flying the flag of APC. I only said I was given a red card but the leadership of the party told me that the decision of the party leadership at the national level is superior to any individual and I think that is good enough.”

It is not clear the party he would join but on Wednesday, the governor alongside Abdulfatah Ahmed and Aminu Tambuwal, his Kwara and Sokoto counterparts, met with leaders of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Ilorin, Kwara state.

Muideen Akorede, spokesman of Ahmed, later said the APC governors met PDP leaders at the burial of the mother of Kawu Baraje, leader of the nPDP.

nPDP pulled out of the PDP in the buildup of the 2015 election. The bloc teamed up with APC to dislodge the former ruling party in 2015.