Gunmen kill Benue Governor’s aide

Gunmen on Friday killed the Senior Special
Assistant on Security to Benue State Governor,
Samuel Ortom, in Makurdi, the capital.

The News Agency of Nigeria reported that Mr.
Denen Igbana, the victim, was killed in the early
hours of the day at his residence in the Tionsha
area of the city.

Speaking during a condolence visit to the family
of the deceased, Ortom vowed that Igbana’s
killers would not escape justice.

He ordered investigation into the killing,
assuring that anybody implicated in the killing
would be severely dealt with.
The governor described the victim as one of his
most trusted and dependable appointees.
He disclosed that the deceased had intimated
him that some people were threatening to
kidnap him and had requested funds to carry
out perimeter fencing on his property.

Ortom said that Igbana was instrumental to the
sustenance of the amnesty programme in the
state that led to the surrendering of arms by
criminal gangs.

The governor assured that the government
would carry out discrete investigation on the
killing to unravel the motive and people behind
the act.

Also speaking, the Commissioner of Police in
the state, Mr. Paul Yakadi, stated that the police
were already “nosing around to fish out possible
suspects.”

The leader of Tionsha community, Mr. Thomas
Ayakpam, said the neighbourhood was
awakened at about 2:30am by the sound of
gunshots.

He said that after the gunshots had died down,
he heard the deceased pleading with his
assailants to spare his life.

I heard him say, “So, Ghana, after all that that
we have done together, you can look me in the
face and kill me in this manner?”

Some sympathisers confirmed that they also
heard gunshots and the altercation between
Igbana and his killers.