The lingering rift between Governor Samuel Ortom and his estranged political leader, Senator George Akume, Monday got to a head as the governor declared that political disaster awaits the senator in the coming 2019 elections if he did not make amends with the majority of Benue people.
Ortom, who accused his predecessor of conspiring with enemies of the state to impeach him to destabilize Benue State, cautioned the senator to stop playing god.
The Governor, who spoke through Terver Akase, his Chief Press Secretary, was reacting to comments credited to Senator Akume, who at the All Progressives Congress, APC, caucus meeting at the weekend in Makurdi, allegedly demeaned the person of the governor, accusing him of misappropriating funds and vowed to remove him from office in six months.
Akase in his response said: “It’s quite unfortunate that the senator has arrogated to himself divine powers, powers that only God has and in addition to that, he has arrogated to himself the powers that only majority of Benue people can give to anyone.
“If not, why would he say he would remove the Governor, under which laws was he speaking, under which statutes of this country was he saying that, because he doesn’t have the powers to remove a sitting Governor.
“He tried it with eight members of the State Assembly and he failed. It was an illegality that has remained an illegality and all of us were here to see that he supervised that illegality that failed.
“As much as they failed in the first attempt, they will fail 1,000 times if they try it again because Governor Ortom was popularly elected by Benue people and only the people have the powers to remove him not a senator, not an individual.
“It is quite unfortunate that in this age of our democracy, someone sits somewhere and thinks that only he has the power to say whatever he feels like saying and that becomes law.
“The questions Benue people are asking the Senator is that since he even didn’t remember when he Akume was governor, because I recall that in the Senate when he was canvassing to be Senate president in 2007, his colleagues asked him what period he was governor of the state he couldn’t remember he said 1947 and later said 1979.
“So since he couldn’t remember when he was governor, the question the people are asking him is what is your scorecard as a Senator for 12 years? He should tell Benue people his achievements.
“Again, let me say that the people do not need to be surprised because this is a man that on the day that Benue was burying 73 people killed by herdsmen, this same senator went to the podium and was canvassing votes for somebody in this country.
“He spoke on that day and said that the person has done well for Benue people and that he would do more for the people, but of course the people booed him out of the podium.
“So if a son of Benue on a dark day in the history of this state, that 73 souls were lying-in-state at the IBB Square, had the conscience to canvass votes for somebody, it tells you the manner of person we are talking about here. It tells you this individual does not believe in the course and project called Benue.
“It is quite unfortunate that he has conspired with enemies of the state to destabilize Benue and he is still promising fire and brimstone, it’s quite unfortunate.
“It is regrettable that senator Akume would report to publicly insulting his Governor because a leader should speak with decorum, a leader should speak with diplomacy, a leader shouldn’t insult other leaders.
“It is rather unfortunate that a leader chooses to insult a sitting Governor, he himself was once a governor and he wasn’t insulted but if he feels that he was a governor and he left with governorship, certainly no.
“That sit still exists and it is the biggest sit of this state and it is the symbol of unity on Benue and if you insult the person who occupies that seat it then means that you have no respect for Benue people and Benue people will reject you when the time comes.
“These are the same people who commended and pour encomiums on Governor Ortom when he was still in the APC. They spoke in glowing terms of the Governor, they said he was their star, the national chairman of the APC and even the state chairman said he was their star player and one of their best performing APC governors.
“Now, suddenly, the governor has become a demon in their tongues. If you commend someone in the morning and you demonize him in the evening, it means something is wrong with your character.
“It is a character of instability and inconsistency. So the same Governor they commended yesterday just in July has now become a poor performing Governor.
“They even claimed he misappropriated money, why didn’t they talk about this when he was still in the APC? Are they just realizing that he misappropriated money?
“The fact is that the Governor has put his papers on the table. The papers of good governance and transparency for everyone to see and he has challenged anyone who accuses him of that to prove it.
“The onus of proof lies with the accuser. So when they claimed that he has been deducting local government money, one of the governorship aspirants in the APC was in charge of local government affairs, he should come out and say that any of such happened. After all he is a member of the opposition now, do I challenge him.
“By the way the local government is a tier of government. The governor does not have direct approvals, he can only ask whoever is holding that office to treat because the local government is a different tier.
The governor does not approve funds. The funds are only kept in custody of the state. But in terms of disbursements local governments are in charge of their funds and that is what Governor Ortom has respected. Since he came in he has separated that very clearly, local governments pay their staff, the Governor does not pay their staff.
“So if you are accusing him, the man who was in charge of that position just left a few weeks ago, he should come out and say that the Governor stole money. That’s our challenge and I think that would settle the matter.”
