Gov Ortom Donates Food Items And Toiletries To Displaced People Of Agatu LG,Requests Fed Govt To Assist Displaced People.

Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, yesterday requested assistance from the Federal Government as well as individuals and organizations to provide help for thousands of the displaced people of Agatu local government area of the state.Governor Ortom, represented by his Deputy, Engr. Benson Abounu, made the request when he visited three sc
hools where those displaced by the recent herdsmen’s attacks are currently taking refuge.
The schools are Local Government Education Authority, LGEA, Central School, Ugbokpo, Methodist High School, Ojantele, and Methodist Primary School, Ataganyi, all in Apa local government area which shares boundaries with Agatu.
Over 3, 000 persons, made up of mainly women and children, have been registered in the camps with many more trooping in.
“This crisis is of unimaginable proportions and something serious has to be done immediately to alleviate the sufferings of the people,” he stated.
“These are people with new born babies, I’ve seen many of them who have twins that are just two-three months old, you can see that water is a problem, even where to ease themselves is a problem, so it’s a very serious crisis that we have on our hands.”
Governor Ortom appealed to the Federal Government, individuals and groups to assist in providing succor to those affected.
“You know these people here have to eat so we brought rice, garri, sugar, indomie noddles, maggi, other food items and soaps for washing just for immediate relief,” he stated.
According to him the state government took several proactive steps including hosting of several meetings between herders and farmers as well as holding joint security and peace meetings between Benue and Nasarawa States on the matter.
He expressed appreciation for President Buhari’s directive for full scale investigation into the crises and called for massive deployment of the army and other security agents to quell further escalation of the crisis and to restore normalcy.