The Chief Press Secretary to the Governor of Benue State, Terver Akase said, governor Samuel Ortom was shocked by the acting Inspector General of Police, IGP, Usman Alkali’s statement that armed men who attempted to assassinate the governor have been apprehended and are not Fulani.
Akase noted also that more shocking was IGP’s statement that those arrested who were ten in number are actually the masterminds of the assassination attempt on the Ortom at Tyo Mu community last March, but “the outcome of the investigation was contrary to the claim of the Governor.”
The Acting Inspector General of Police on Thursday at a special press briefing at the State House in Abuja said: “Those who organized and those who pulled the trigger have all been arrested and investigation is ongoing.”
“The investigation so far showed that the outcome was contrary to the claims made by the Governor.
“The accused are in detention, we haven’t taken them to Court yet because the judiciary staff are on strike”, IGP said.
But in his swift reaction on Thursday, the governor’s media aide said, the IGP must have been misquoted.
Akase said: “We heard the statement by the Inspector General of Police, IGP, regarding the investigation into the attack on Governor Samuel Ortom in March this year.
“It’s possible that the IGP was misquoted because he couldn’t have said what is being reported.
“This is because a team that the office of the IGP deployed to Benue to investigate that attack, told and confirmed to the Governor that indeed the identities of those who made an attempt on his life were armed Fulani people.
“Again the armed security details who were with the Governor at the time confirmed that the people they saw that wanted to kill the Governor were armed Fulani people.
“So we are shocked, the IGP must have been misquoted because his team told the Governor that the people who tried to kill him, indeed their identity were Fulani.
“He was quoted to have said that what they got was contrary to what the Governor said.
CAPITAL POST recalled that the attempted armed attack on Samuel Ortom was greeted with heavy criticisms by Nigerians who imagined the height of insecurity in the nation.
The Federal Government through the immediate past Inspector General of Police, Mohammed Adamu drafted a special team to Benue State to investigate and arrest those behind the incident.
