De-constructing Sam Omotseye’s Attack On Governor Ortom & Tiv People By Tersoo Adagher

My dear senior colleague SAM OMATSEYE your article on the backpage of  Nation newspaper  Monday 1 April was such an embarrassment to us your throng of admirers and followers, that a revered media practitioner who use to be a gauge of  media morality in this nation, would lend himself to a  propaganda of high drive, to appeal the wishes of those who lost woefully in the just concluded elections in the state.

Otherwise, who would have believed that Omatseye would maintain a self-distance from the ethnic cleansing in Tiv land perpetrated by the Fulani herdmen, only for him to use his platform Nation newspaper and as the Editorial Chairman to malign a sitting governor who stood by his people when they needed him most.

Omatseye’s attck on the Tiv race reminds one of the truth that indeed, most of those we look up to in this fourth estate of the realm are actually standing on clay feet and will fail the test of a gentle push or inducement. A man whose writings suddenly denigrate a particular people, calling them lovers of food and sex is more harmful to the society than a man who runs amok with a dagger in a crowded street. The latter can be restrained physically. But the former deliberately destroys the moral foundation of society and causes incalculable distress to individuals through abusing his platform and intellectual property   while still being referred to as One who hold the government accountable.

Going by Omatseye’s hatred for Governor Ortom’s re-election and the Tiv people in his column he has betrayed the moral reportage expected of him.

Since the revered columnist and the Hon. Fellow, Nigerian Academy of Letters Sam Omatseye has made a failed attempt to impugn the Office, Person and Tiv Race, I have chosen to use this piece to remind him that Governor Samuel Ioarer Ortom won his election as a result of his quest to defend his people from Herders who wanted to take over their ancestral land. I also want to remind Omatseye that the Tiv people were never conquered by Usman Dan-Fodio in his quest to spread Islam across the Benue Valley. I also want to refresh his memory that we are warrior by birth and not food and sex as he paints it in his column. We fought gallantly during the civil war to keep Nigeria indivisible. That is why the Benue people have the highest number of ex-servicemen in Nigeria today.

However most Nigerians are not surprise of Omatseye’s perpetual attack on Governor Ortom of course, this would not be the first time he would reach out against the governor usually from a self-righteously indignant lecterns. Where was Omatseye when the Tiv people were massacred in their homes while asleep, where was Omatseye when the catholic church in Mbalom my own village was attacked by the Fulani herdsmen killing two priest and eight parishioners, just to mention a few.

Omatseye never in his writings interrogate the frequent attack on the Tiv people by Fulani herdsmen. Even when he had the golden opportunity to stoke the conscience of his readers and admirers when the Tiv people were massacred on daily basis by the herders. For me, that was the moment Omatseye should have penned down in his column the conspiracy against the Tiv nation. But he never did. Only for him to wake up with the depression of APC’s defeat in Benue state to write in his column, denigrating a people who voted for Fresh Air as against the forces of darkness.

Tersoo Adagher is An Abuja based Investigative Journalist, writer and Online Media Consultant