From Rose Ejembi, Makurdi
Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has vowed to take the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume to court over his allegation that the Governor mismanaged funds accruing to the state in the last six years.
This is even as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State has lampooned the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume over his call for a declaration of a state of emergency in the State, saying his call was a strategy to use federal might to get through the back door what he failed to achieve at the polls in 2019.
The Governor, while addressing newsmen at the Banquet Hall of the Government House in Makurdi, the state capital on Wednesday said the onus of proof of all the allegations against him rests on the former Governor.
“I am taking Akume to court for him to come and prove all the allegations against me. The onus of proof lies on him. He should go and prove it in court. I have chosing to take the honourable way,” Ortom said.
“I want to let the world know about the recent rantings by Minister of Special Duties. I don’t want to join issues with him but I have to put the record straight. What he has done amount to betrayal.
“All he said were just mere lies to secure his meal ticket from his paymasters. My first commitment is to the people of Benue State. To send a message to the entire world, I decided to do something that Akume will justify all those allegation.
“He attempted to impeach me in 2018 but by the grace of God, the people of Benue rejected him and all the people he put forward to contest too.
The Governor who noted that the former Governor and his All Progressives Congress APC no longer has any structure in the state, disclosed that in the last election, the PDP won three senatorial seats, seven out of 11 House of Representatives seats and 22 out of 30 House of Assembly seats and asked, “where is Akume’s structure in the state?”
He posited that even though the Benue people elected Akume twice as Governor and three times as senator, he had not identified with them during their moment of displacement occasioned by the herdsmen attacks on them.
“This is a person who was elected twice as Governor and three times as senator where all his constituents who were affected by the Herdsmen attacks are in IDP camps,” Ortom said.
Meanwhile, the PDP in a statement which was read to newsmen by the state Chairman, Sir John Ngbede, accused the Minister of trying to impress his political godfather at the detriment of the Benue people.
“For Akume, his political godfather whom he seeks to impress at the detriment of his people, whose crime could be their generous political patronage of making him governor twice and Senator thrice, will not be on the scene to give him the life support of an ineffective and inconsequential ministerial position.
“The major demand of Senator Akume in yesterday’s press conference at which he sold his soul to the devil is a declaration of a State of Emergency in Benue State. This implies a dissolution of all democratic structures in the state and the foisting of a surrogate government that will pander to his whims and caprices.
“The stooges which he would personally install under an emergency rule would make the purse of the state available for him to dip his hands into it just like he did in the last days of his administration in 2007, when he left Government House with a truck of N2 billion trailing behind him,” the PDP alleged.