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What a fall. Just months after leaving power as two-term governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom was today captured on video being loudly booed, insulted, and literally chased out of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) national secretariat in Abuja by a mob of angry party supporters.
The short but shocking clip, now circulating widely across Nigerian social media, shows the former governor, dressed in his trademark black suit and red cap, trying to make his way through a crowded corridor only to be met with jeers of “TYOTOM!!!” – a derogatory Tiv word that has become the ultimate political insult in Benue since Ortom’s second term became synonymous with unpaid salaries, rising insecurity, and accusations of diverting local government funds.
The mob, apparently PDP members and youth supporters, did not hide their contempt. Some laughed mockingly, others pointed and shouted “Na so e don reach?” as security personnel struggled to shield the visibly shaken ex-governor and bundle him toward the exit.
Ortom, who only last year was one of the most powerful men in the North-Central and a key voice in the G5 rebellion against Atiku Abubakar, has seen his political fortunes collapse spectacularly since handing over to the current APC administration of Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia.
His attempt to install a successor failed, his anointed candidates were roundly defeated, and now even the party he once boasted he brought to power in Benue in 2015 appears to have turned its back on him completely.
Today’s public humiliation is being seen by many as the final nail. Political observers in Makurdi say the former governor has lost control of the PDP structure in the state, with most of his former allies either decamping to APC or quietly distancing themselves.
For a man who once moved with heavy security convoys and shut down entire local governments whenever he visited, being chased out like a common intruder by the same party youths who used to sing his praises is about as brutal as Nigerian politics gets.
Love him or hate him, Samuel Ortom was a governor for eight years. He led Benue through some of its darkest moments of herdsmen attacks, introduced the controversial anti-open grazing law, and became a national figure in the process.
But politics, as they say, has no permanent friends – only permanent interests.
Today, those interests turned their back on him in the most public, most painful way possible.
TYOTOM indeed.
