Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, has said the security challenges in the country is a threat to 2023 general election, thus, no Nigerian would think of it.

The governor, on Tuesday, stated this to the State House correspondents after a closed door meeting with President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Villa, Abuja.

Ortom’s meeting with the president came 3 days after his attack by some gunmen.

The governor said there was no way Nigerians could be talking of the 2023 elections without first securing the country.

He stated that “I want to also appeal to Nigerians. 2023, yes to a politician is not far, but it is still a long way. If we secure our country and everything is going fine, then we can talk about 2023.

“But the way things are going, if we don’t secure the country, there is no way we can be talking about 2023. For me, I want us as leaders of this country, we have taken oaths of office, let us abide by those things we have said and work together as a team; leave politics aside, leave ethnicity aside and secure the country. We have no other country than the Nigeria we live in.”

Ortom warned against inflammatory statements by some people; he urged them to desist from it.

He noted that “I am aware that the security challenges in our country today are not about the President or we, state governors. They are about every citizen of this country, so we must work together to surmount them.

“I also want Nigerians to know, especially those who are responsible for making inflammatory statements, that we are sitting on a keg of gunpowder and everybody is not in doubt in Nigeria today, about the security situation.

“Without security, there can be no meaningful progress and so it is important to put heads together.

“Let’s do the things that are lawful; protect the provisions of the constitution of Nigeria so that everybody will be secured. Let there be equity, fairness and justice. That is what I stand for.”

The governor in his address to the State House correspondents faulted those who believed that he staged the attack on his convoy.

Ortom expressed that “We should know when to play politics and we should know when to team up together to work as a team to salvage the country. That is what I’m saying. Those who are saying that I faked the attack, what benefit do I have to come up and say that I was attacked?”

He further disclosed that the state government’s anti-open grazing law was not targeted at any ethnic group or individual as being insinuated.

 “I have been able to recommend some measures and most of them the President agreed with-that nobody should be a sacred cow,” he said.