By Tunde Olusunle
Your eyes are instantly arrested by the unusual
volume of the Benue River as you drive into Makurdi from the Daudu/Agan
abutments of the capital of Benue State, this quiet afternoon.
You glide past the approach bridge, and glimpse to your left, the “Makurdi Golf Course,” hitherto seated by the scenic lips of the river. It is soaked, sadly now, swamped and submerged by the overabundance of liquid blessings. Ahead of you is the attention-commanding artwork of a huge basket bearing a variety of farm produce, an attestation to the pride of the place of Benue State as the epicentre of food production in the country.
The image sits strategically at the intersection which leads to
the nation’s South East and South-South stretches. The scourge of the floods,
you come to understand, is the reason that your host, Samuel Ioraer Ortom,
Governor of the state, could barely savour the nation’s 62nd Independence
Anniversary, two days later.
He began his day that Saturday, Oct 1, 2022, by attending the interdenominational church service commemorating the national landmark. The event was held at the All Nations Evangelism Ministries in Makurdi, the state capital and Ortom had taken the first Bible reading.
