Sankera Elites Forum Blasts Suswam over falsified 2019 election history, Rejects endorsement of Gov Alia amid herdsmen crisis
The Sankera Elites Forum has expressed profound shock, disbelief, and utter disappointment over a viral video circulating online, featuring Senator Chief Gabriel Torwua Suswam delivering what it described as a brazen and deliberate falsehood during a thanksgiving reception in Ugba, organized in honour of Prof. Steven Torkuma Ugba.
In the footage, Suswam, a former governor of Benue State, shockingly claimed that Chief Samuel Ortom, the immediate past governor, lost the 2019 governorship election across all local governments in Zone A, except those in the Sankera axis.
This narrative, the forum insisted, is not merely inaccurate but a calculated distortion of verifiable historical records, aimed at rewriting electoral outcomes for political gain.
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The forum likened Suswam’s repeated peddling of this lie to the age-old adage that unchallenged falsehoods eventually parade as truth, emphasizing that such tactics threaten the integrity of Benue’s political history.
“It is precisely to safeguard posterity and set the records straight that we must intervene now,” the group declared in a statement signed by eight prominent honourables from the district.
They accused Suswam of either succumbing to distractions in his endless quest for a new political platform or willingly sacrificing truth on the altar of expediency, urging him to confront the facts he appears to have conveniently forgotten or suppressed.
For absolute clarity and to dispel any ambiguity, the Sankera Elites Forum laid bare the undeniable election results from Zone A in 2019, underscoring that Chief Samuel Ortom suffered defeat in only one local government area, Katsina-Ala, across the entire zone comprising seven councils.
Official Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) figures, which remain public and incontrovertible, paint a picture that utterly demolishes Suswam’s fabricated story, with Ortom securing victories in the remaining six local governments through overwhelming voter support reflective of his widespread popularity and performance.
These hard figures, drawn from Katsina-Ala, Ukum, Logo, Ushongo, Kwande, Vandeikya, and Konshisha, stand as irrefutable testaments to Ortom’s broad-based victory in Zone A, far beyond the confines of Sankera.
The forum highlighted that while Sankera’s contribution of 71,939 votes to Ortom’s tally was indeed massive and a source of pride, even stripping away every single vote from the area would leave Ortom with a commanding margin of victory statewide.
Such attempts to shrink his win to Sankera alone smack of intellectual dishonesty and desperate political manoeuvring, the group charged.
Delving deeper into Suswam’s role during that fateful 2019 poll, the forum recalled how the senator’s phones mysteriously went silent on election day, amid widespread speculations, particularly from his own supporters in Sankera, that he had issued directives favouring Emmanuel Jime, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate.
“Having actively undermined Ortom’s campaign, Suswam now opportunistically claims credit for Sankera’s bold, independent choice after it proved his predictions wrong,” the statement fumed, branding this flip-flopping as both insulting to the electorate and unacceptable in the annals of Benue politics.
The Sankera Elites Forum went further to lambast Suswam for his total abdication of duty as the foremost political figure from the area, accusing him of downgrading himself to a mere errand boy and praise singer for Governor Hyacinth Alia.
Instead of fiercely advocating for Sankera’s interests amid escalating insecurity and humanitarian woes, Suswam has prioritized personal relevance, they alleged, trading the collective suffering of his people for fleeting political favours from the current administration.
In Katsina-Ala Local Government Area, for instance, entire Shitile communities in Michihe Ward, along with Mbatyula/Mberev, Yooyo, Utange, and Mbajir, have been brutally displaced by violent clashes, forcing residents into degrading existence with distant relatives while armed Fulani herdsmen brazenly occupy their ancestral farmlands without any challenge from security forces.
The forum painted a vivid picture of families torn apart, livelihoods shattered, and farmlands turned into grazing pastures, questioning how any leader from the zone could remain silent.
The crisis extends disastrously to Ukum Local Government, where whole communities including Borikyo, Mbatian, Ugbaam, parts of Uyam, Kundav, Tyuruv, Azendeshi, Aterayange, Mbayenge, Mbazum, and Tsaav have been completely depopulated and surrendered as conquered territories to the invaders.
Women, children, and the elderly have fled for their lives, leaving behind ghost villages haunted by the echoes of violence, with no semblance of government intervention to restore order or resettle the displaced, the statement detailed with harrowing specificity.
Even in Logo Local Government, the abandonment is stark: Tombo, Ukemberagya/Tswarev, and segments of Suswam’s own Mbagber wards lie forsaken to marauding herdsmen, their inhabitants scattered and hopeless.
The forum decried this as a full-blown humanitarian catastrophe unfolding under Governor Alia’s watch, with farmlands seized, homes razed, and lives upended, yet met with governmental indifference that borders on complicity.
In the face of this unfolding tragedy, Senator Suswam has shown no spine to demand the establishment of proper Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps, no resolve to push for robust security deployments, and no embarrassment in openly endorsing Alia for a second term despite the glaring absence of food aid for the starving, shelter for the homeless, or protection for the vulnerable.
“Where is the voice of Sankera’s champion?” the forum said, portraying Suswam’s silence as a betrayal of the very people who once looked to him for leadership.
By throwing his weight behind Alia’s 2027 re-election bid without addressing these existential threats, Suswam effectively signals to Sankera’s suffering masses that their plight is expendable collateral for the governor’s ambitions, a message the Elites Forum roundly rejected as an outrageous insult to communal dignity and resilience.
The displaced farmers, orphaned children, and widowed mothers deserve better than political platitudes, they asserted.
While affirming Suswam’s liberty to pursue his personal political affiliations, the forum categorically stated that he holds no mandate whatsoever to purport speaking for or endorsing anyone on behalf of the Sankera people.
That controversial endorsement of Governor Alia stems purely from Suswam’s self-serving interests and carries zero weight as a reflection of the zone’s collective will, which remains fiercely independent and discerning.
In a resounding declaration without mincing words, the Sankera Elites Forum affirmed that the zone cannot and will not back a governor bereft of any tangible projects across its expanse, from roads and schools to hospitals and water schemes, who has instead superintended the systematic abandonment, displacement, and dehumanization of its indigenes.
Governor Alia’s administration stands indicted for neglect amid banditry and herder incursions, rendering Sankera a forsaken frontier.
History, the group warned, will inexorably judge those who boldly proclaimed truth against the tide and those who bartered conscience for comfort, urging Sankera’s sons and daughters to remember this moment come 2027.
The forum rallied with patriotic fervour: Long live Sankera!
Long live the Sankera Elites Forum!
Signed:
Hon. Abraham WarohPrince Tyodoo LivinusHon. Pila DanielHon. Shimataver AperHon. Dan MashinHon. Gabriel MnyimangaHon. Shim MichealHon. Aondover Adanyi
