2019: Benue PDP, national leadership break up with defector Gov. Ortom

Benue Governor Samuel Ortom may have gambled away his chances of a shot at the 2019 guber race as the recent APC defector hit a brick wall in his drive for a second term on the platform of his new party PDP.

Since his defection, there has been some stirring over his proposal to grab 60 percent of the PDP structure in the state.

The ensuing friction between Ortom and 12 other PDP eyeing the governorship led the party’s NEC to a roundtable chaired by ex-Gov.Liyel Imoke, where the proposal was tabled before the national and state executives.

The roundtable, during the week, according to the Punch, rejected the proposal.

The aspirants had earlier petitioned the national leadership, “raising concerns regarding the demands for sharing of party structures,” a tweet by the state’s PDP publicity secretary stated.
“The issue of bringing a sitting governor and imposing him on us cannot even work,” one of the aspirant was quited as saying by the newspaper.
“Let the governor come and struggle with other governorship aspirants. But if you say go and adopt him, thank God, the court is there and it is the hope of the common man.

“If we are treated as commoners, then we will show our nuisance value to the party; then we see how it goes.”

Ortom crossed in and out of two parties in about four years. He first dumped the PDP for the APC to contest and win the 2015 guner election.