G-5 Governors, 2023 and Ortom’s Novel“Bottom to Top”Mantra
Tunde Olusunle writes about the recent meeting of the G-5 Governors of the Peoples Democratic Party in Makurdi, the Benue State capital during which the projects executed by Governor Samuel Ortom were inaugurated by his counterparts from Rivers, Oyo, Abia
Two incidents in the not too distant past, mitigated my physical participation in open-field, free-to-air political events, notably rallies and conventions, in recent times. At a rally of the Peoples’ Democratic Party, (PDP), in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital years ago, I left the venue of the event, relatively lighter than I went. My prized mobile phone had been pinched from the pocket of my national dress I donned to the event. It was an experience I had never had. With most of us almost wholly dependent on our electronic gadgets for day-to-day functionality, I felt like an orphan having been so criminally dispossessed of my device, for 24 subsequent hours. This was the time span between the pilferage of the equipment, and its eventual replacement. The second experience occurred as I queued to access Eagle Square, Abuja for the convention of the same party in 2017. I least imagined that the wad of currency
notes I supposedly secured in one of the less visible pockets of my smart dress, could be so neatly, albeit criminally accessed!
On the recent invitation of the much-misunderstood governor of Benue State, Samuel Ioraer Ortom, however, I broke my subsisting selfcensorship. I honoured the flag-off of the Benue State PDP campaigns, held in Makurdi the state capital, on Monday November 7, 2022. Candidates of the PDP contesting for various positions, at all levels in the February and March 2023 polls, were to be formally presented to the PDP family in the state. My longstanding friend and brother, Tivlumun Nyitse, Chief of Staff to Ortom, was the ideal host, on behalf of his Principal.
The pre-event sensitisation was
massive. Ortom’s colleagues, who have come to be known as the G-5, or the Integrity Group as they are interchangeably referred to, in contemporary political discourse, were to headline the event. Nyesom Wike, Seyi Makinde, Okezie Ikpeazu and Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi of Rivers, Oyo, Abia and Enugu respectively, would be storming the food basket of the nation, the legend of Benue State, for the programme. They were coming to stir the Benue river, calmer now than weeks ago when its flooded banks chased the people from their homes and farmlands. The quintet have been vocal and unanimous in speaking up against issues they consider unjust and unfair, in the current structure and operations of their party, vowing never to back-down until their demands are addressed. The issues are public knowledge, and need no rehashing.
The airport at the typically sleepy Nigerian Airforce Base, Makurdi, came alive in the evening of Sunday November 6, 2022. Four
private jets, each conveying Ortom’s guests, lit up the concreted face of the typically snoozing tarmac. Chief host Ortom would settle his guests in at the recently rehabilitated Aper Aku Lodge in Government House, christened after the Second Republic governor of the state. Aku is credited with several multisectoral innovations, during his shortlived four year term in office. Aper Aku Lodge is an innocuous, yet voluptuous complex with about 25 rooms, backing the Presidential Lodge within the Government House. After dinner with his guests in his own section of the Government House behemoth, Ortom led his guests on a short walk to the Banquet Hall for a reception.