- Professor Wole Soyinka has advised Governor Samuel Ortom to remain resilient and unbowed despite the crisis facing his state
- The nobel laureate said the governor has the moral right to defect from his party
- He urged the governor to prepare for a heavy-handed campaign of reprisals from ruling party
Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, in a letter to the governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom, has advised the governor to expect heavy-handed campaign against him and remain resilient and unbowed after his defection from All Progressives Congress (APC).
Soyinka, in his letter to the governor, said Ortom has the moral right to defect from a party where he was unable to get enough help to combat the violence and senseless killing in Benue state.
The letter read in part: “As a leader of a people who took much of the earliest brunt of unleashed herdsmen savagery and cried in vain for help, you have a moral right to seek the promise of an alternative haven of security for your people.
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“They remain your primary responsibility. We are all free to cavil over the actual choice of an alternative destination, but no one can deny the inalienable entitlement to such action, especially where provoked by disillusionment and a sense of impotence under existing association.
“Coincidences are, by their very nature, suspect, and I certainly perceive the beginnings of a heavy-handed campaign of reprisals from ruling circles over your political decision.
“This bodes ill for the nation. It goes beyond any immediately-affected state and alerts us all to fascistic threats against a common democratic destination, and the basic right of free choice of political paths towards its attainment.
“I can only urge you, therefore, to take heart, and remain resilient, unbowed, and undeterred.”
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Meanwhile, NAIJ.com earlier reported that the Peoples democratic Party's national chairman Uche Secondus on Wednesday, August 1, led some PDP governors and senators on a solidarity visit to Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state following recent threats to impeach him.
In a brief speech when they met Ortom at the Government House, Makurdi, Secondus described the impeachment plot initiated by eight members of the Benue legislature as “an act of illegality”, and urged Nigerians to rise against it.
Nigeria News: Will Senators, Lawmakers’ Defection from APC Change Power in 2019? on NAIJ.com TV
Source: Naija.ng
