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The ruling All Progress Congress (APC) in Benue State has said the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) administration, led by Governor Samuel Ortom, has failed the people.
Addressing a press conference in Makurdi, the chairman – elect of APC Comrade Austin Agada, also called on all officials of Ortom administration to resign.
Comrade Agada said: “We are greatly dismayed the manner at which Governor Samuel Ortom and his few supporters have been clutching at straws to foist the reasons for his legendary poor performance as Governor on the Leader of our party in Benue, Senator George Akume, Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs.
“These attacks on our leader have been brewed consistently over time and intermittently unleashed on him with great mischief.”
He added: “We may have tolerated this bashing for so long, the Governor has again embarked on a dangerous campaign of calumny, trying so desperately to run down the towering profile of Senator Akume, who is one of the very few Nigerian past governors without criminal records”.
He said: “Let it be known to all APC faithful and the whole world that the fraud allegation currently leveled against Senator Akume by Ortom and his government is clearly an act of political witch-hunt, why conjure a haphazard probe report about the Akume administration of many years now, same government had leveled 107 billion naira allegation against the Gabriel Suswams administration but later nullified same; will the same government not overrule itself tomorrow over these frivolous reports that seek to indict Senator Akume today.”
“Those of us who are conversant with operations of the present day Benue State Government, this is merely another diversionary tactics, this administration has a history of raising unfounded claims and excuses, each time money comes into the state.
“The day it was confirmed that the federal government has made available another tranche of over 18 Billion Naira bailout to Benue State, Ortom has become strangely more loquacious and hostile, not just to his benefactor, Senator Akume, but also to the Benue civil servants and pensioners that he has refused to pay their salaries and pensions; the internally displaced persons that he has described as thieves stealing his cassava from the farm and now, rudely referring to all Benue people as drunkards who idly start drinking as early as 9am daily, till dawn which you all know cannot be the true identity of the Benue people who have been known over the years as very hard working and great farmers.
“It is regrettable that rather than employ Benue people, the Ortom administration has perfidiously sacked thousands of youths (BIRS interns) that were absorbed into the Benue State civil service by his predecessor; he has also sacked many other civil servants as ghost workers without employing others, an act that has skyrocketed the rate of unemployment in the state.
“Despite all the sacks, the salary wage bill of Benue under his administration has rather climbed to over 7 billion naira, based on his claims. In all fairness, what has Ortom done to take the Benue man off the street and alcohol in the last 6 years of his administration? What has been the social intervention programme of his administration when businesses are rather closing down in Benue due to multiple taxations?
“The governor ought to have been ashamed that despite his deliberate impoverishment of the state, his subject could still afford a bottle of beer to sip and forget their poverty and misery.”
“Never for once has Benue State been this stagnant in terms of policy framework and development. No sector of the state economy seems to be working. State workers are currently owed about 7 months arrears of salary in Benue, primary school teachers and local government staff are owed for over one year while pensioners are still owed for over 32 months, not to mention their gratuities.
