Dear Benue Compatriots. It has become imperative to make some clarifications regarding a formal communication from the Governor-elect, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia that has been leaked to the media by officials of the outgoing Samuel Ortom administration in Benue State.

The Governor-Elect took the decision to make the formal communication to heads of government’s parastatals and financial institutions in good faith and in the interest of the Benue public.

Moreover, since his declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the 2023 gubernatorial elections in the state, Fr. Alia has been completely ignored, neglected and treated with the utmost disdain by the outgoing Governor, Samuel Ortom and his machinery of government.

Where principles of public policy are valued, the day Fr. Alia collected his Certificate of Return, he expectedly became a respected property of the state and should, accordingly, be accorded due rights and privileges as the custodian of the Benue people’s mandate.

The State Government is under obligation to provide him with a special accommodation, provide official cars for him, takeover his feeding and that of his staff and visitors. Has the Ortom administration shown any level of commitment in these expected norms?No!

Moreover, where there is a mutually defined concern about the development of a state, the outgoing governor willingly ceases to make unilateral decisions on policy issues once his successor is issued a Certificate of Return. He makes policy decisions only in due consultations with the incoming Governor to avoid conflicting distraction on policy and administrative issues such as the ones under discourse.

Meanwhile, for those who think that until the Governor-elect takes the oath of office, he is still remains an ordinary citizen, let us permit their ignorance. They need to be educated that presently, the President-elect and all Governor-elects have been receiving every detailed briefing as a process of power transition. Every security briefing given to the outgoing administration is also submitted to the heads of the incoming administration. That is the standard practice and principle of a transition process in a democratic governance.

It is rather sad that all decisions taken by Ortom’s administration presently negate every known principles of public policy. They have the stamp of utmost compromise and prejudices. Therefore people of sound reasoning should not join hired mercenaries of mischief to mislead the unsuspecting members of the Benue public on concocted misrepresentations of due process in the power transition in Benue State.

If such efforts must be termed as desperate by those elements that are rigidly fixated on the negative lane of logic, then, so be it. There is a saying that desperate situations require desperate measures to fix.

Where the public interest is concerned, as it is glaring in this case, any citizen can step in. We have instances including in Abia State, where based on the alarm and eyebrows raised by indigenes of the state, the law courts ordered the freezing of all accounts of the state government. Are the courts stupid? So, why are some individuals screaming and making a hullabaloo in the case of Benue? Is it because it is the Governor-elect himself that has sent the cautionary communication? In any case, is there any known law in this country that forbids him from doing so?

Saved for vicious participants of the heist in the state, beneficiaries and hired agents who have been in the ignoble business of concocting defective mechanisms to defend the indefensible, any informed and perceptive Benue indigene who is concerned about the development of the state is worried about the booby-traps the outgoing government of Samuel Ortom is setting for the incoming administration of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia

For those raising issues of law and public policy principles, are they not bothered that an administration that avoided recruiting into the civil service, indigenes of the state on the grounds of “paucity of funds” and “overbloated wage bill” for 7 years and 9 months of its tenure has, in a dramatic twist, suddenly embarked on the massive recruitment of thousands into the civil service barely 2 months to the expiration of its tenure? Have we forgotten that those already in service are still been owed several months of wages?

Recall that it was in his first term in office that Ortom promised to recruit 5,000 teachers. He never did. Why embark on such an exercise now that he is already at the exit door?

It is a well-known fact even that the outgoing administration has mindlessly plunged the state into hundreds of billions of debt profile and is desperately making clandestine arrangements to take more loans in the remaining two months to sustain his avaricious accumulation of wealth outside government. Why would a sane and sound mind like Rev. Alia who has come with a vision to heal and fix Benue, not be worried?

Kula Tersoo

Director of Communications.

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