Nigerian Concord Newspaper
The candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for Benue North West district come 2027, Dr. Mrs Eunice Erdoo Ortom who is the Founder/Chairperson, Eunice Spring of Life Foundation-ESLF is a development administrator, humanitarian aid worker, gender expert and civil servant with over 15 years’ experience.
Her career in community development revolves around rural/urban livelihoods, HIV/AIDs and Vulnerable Children (VCs).
Over these years, Mrs Eunice Ortom served in different capacities across Ministries, Departments and Agencies of Government as well as in the non-governmental sector. Among others, Dr Ortom is passionate about health systems strengthening and promoting the economic self-reliance of women and youth.
As an entrepreneur, Mrs Ortom has a rich vein of experience and capacity in the management of micro, small and medium enterprises having been engaged in the agriculture value chain for over 20 years.
Currently, She manages social enterprises in the sectors of arable farming, agro processing and trading with the key objective of addressing the societal challenge of unemployment.
This, she is doing by engaging women and youth to provide direct labour thus, putting money directly in their hands. Ultimately, addressing poverty across tribes and religion is her overarching goal.
When her husband, Chief. Samuel Ortom, was the Executive Governor of Benue State, she leveraged on her position as the Wife of the Governor and championed the cause of increased female participation in leadership and decision making space.
She always insisted that 7 of the 23 Local Government chairmanship positions be occupied by women, the highest since the creation of Benue State over 40 years ago. In addition, ESLF’s Founder has facilitated the process leading to a commitment by the Benue State Government to increase budgetary allocation to HIV/AIDs interventions in the State.
It’s in line with her commitment to supporting the mobilization of domestic resources for HIV/AIDs interventions. It was in addition to her advocacy for increased State funding of health, education and economic development programmes
Born on August 27, 1972, Eunice Ortom obtained her First School Leaving Certificate in 1983 at Nativity Private School, Makurdi where after she proceeded to Queen of the Rosary Secondary School Gboko.
Here, she studied for and obtained the General Certificate of Education in 1988. In her quest for continued self-development, Dr Ortom studied for and obtained a Bachelor of Science Degree (B.Sc) in International Relations from Nigeria’s foremost ivory tower, the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria in 1997.
On completing the mandatory National Youth Service Programme in 1999 where she supported with administrative duties at the Benue State University, Makurdi, she enrolled for and obtained the degree of Master of Science (M.Sc) in International Relations and Strategic Studies from the same university of her service, in 2004.
In 2015, having fulfilled the requirements, was awarded the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D) in Political Science by the Benue State University, Makurdi, Nigeria.
Today Dr. Mrs Eunice Erdoo Ortom has been unanimously ushered into the Benue North West Senatorial race by developmental minded constituents who are passionate about good, impactful and inclusive representation.
To many electorates, her candidature is an opportunity to correct the many wrongs of yesterday that brought in people who are not developmental oriented by giving her the massive support she deserves to enable her clinch the Senatorial seat and provide the anticipated devedents of democracy.
Comrade By Gbamwuan Barnabas writes from Makurdi