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.
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