MAKURDI, Nigeria – Hyacinth Alia, the newly sworn-in Governor of Benue State, has bemoaned the alleged looting of the Government House in Makurdi and the massive debt left behind by the former administration led by Chief Samuel Ortom.
He claims the state’s debt has reached a staggering N187.56 billion, leaving the state treasury empty.
In a public statement released on Thursday, June 8, 2023, Governor Alia accused the prior administration of leaving him without any official vehicles, alleging that all had been carried away.
He also reported several months of unpaid salaries and pensions for civil servants, which he inherited from the previous administration.
Alia’s public outcry came in response to demands from the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, in the state, which urged him to reverse his decision to nullify all last-minute appointments made by his predecessor.
The Governor dismissed these calls, advising the party to seek forgiveness from the people of Benue State, whom he claimed had been subjected to “untold pains and penury”.
Governor Alia, through his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Tersoo Kula, insisted that his decision to nullify the previous governor’s last-minute appointments is irreversible.
He remarked, “Is it not curious that for more than seven years, Ortom could not employ indigents of the state into the civil service, until a few months to the expiration of his tenure?”
He further lamented the PDP’s legacy of unpaid salaries, highlighting that Ortom’s administration left office owing six months’ worth of salaries to civil servants (from December 2022 to May 2023) and multiple months of arrears to state workers and pensioners from previous years.
“The level of decay caused by the immediate past administration stinks in the severely vandalized offices of state civil servants.
The new government must have to start from scratch to acquire the necessary equipment for the system to start working again,” Alia said.
The Governor urged the PDP to apologize to the people of Benue State and desist from what he called ‘playing to the gallery’.
He reassured citizens not to worry over the actions he has so far taken, as his primary aim is to sanitize and rectify the alleged rot left behind by the previous administration.
