Group Chides Ortom Over Suswams Arrest, Call for His Immediate Release

By George Okohin Makurdi

A group under the aegis of PDP Strategic Reformation Group (PSRG) has accused the Benue State Governor Dr. Samuel Ortom of masterminding the continued detention of former governor of the state, Gabriel Suswam by officials of the Department of State Security Services DSSS even as it called for his immediate unconditional release. Leader of the group and former member of the Benue State House of Assembly Honourable Kenneth Iyo, made this known during a press conference it held in Makurdi today. He described as undemocratic and barbaric the continued detention.

of Suswam for over two months without charging him to court over what he said was trumped- up charges saying, it negated the principle of fair hearing and rights of citizens as enshrined in the Nigerian constitution. He said that the main reason for the desperation to have the immediate governor incarcerated was target at clipping the wings of the PDP ahead of the local council elections in the state scheduled for June 3rd, 2017. He said the PDP had in the past one year been growing owing to the abysmal style of governance been witnessed in the state under the Ortom led administration and hence the fear of it been rejected at the polls by the Benue electorates.

“Recall that the former. governor of Benue state .Gabriel Suswam was arrested by the DSS February 25TH 2017 exactly 57 days today without being charged to court or released on bail, that is a government that is fighting corruption. The continued detention of Suswam amounts to a violation of his fundamental human rights as stipulated in the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria as various acts and articles of the African charter on human and people’s rights and laws of the federal republic of Nigeria.