Former Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has said that he has no regrets working against former Vice President Atiku Abubakar in the 2023 presidential election, despite the fact that Atiku was the flag bearer of his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Ortom was one of the five PDP governors at the time, known as G5, who openly rejected Atiku as the PDP flag bearer and worked for Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 poll.
In an interview with Channels TV on Monday, July 21, Ortom said he didn’t view working against his party’s candidate as a betrayal. According to him, he was working for the interest of his people and not his personal interest.
““I did not hide it. I have no regret, Which betrayal? Pursuing my interest and the interest of my people? The interest of my people is that you provide what they want. If you ask me, I would describe politics as a game of doing what your people want, not what I want. Politics is a game of interest, and if I have somebody working against my interest and the interest of my people, I have to fight back.”he said
Ortom said it was unheard of that a northerner, Muhammadu Buhari, was president for eight years and then another northerner in the person of Atiku would succeed him.
“We were preaching equity, fairness and justice. How can you explain to me that a northern won the presidency for eight years and another northern, from the same ethnic group, will win the presidency for another four years or eight years, as the case may be? Our democracy has not gotten to that level.
We said no; it is in the unwritten constitution that the North will do eight years and the South will do eight years. So, we believed in a southern presidency and not a northern presidency. That was why some of us supported a southern presidential aspirant.” he said