APC, PDP trade words over fraud allegations against Akume

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has expressed dismay over attacks by Governor Samuel Ortom on their leader, the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs Senator George Akume.

The APC said the attacks on their leader have been brewed consistently over time and intermittently unleashed on him with great mischief only to tarnish his image and scuttle his ambition to become chairman of APC.

Addressing a press conference Wednesday in Makurdi, Chairman of the party in the state Austin Agada said while the APC may have tolerated the bashing for so long, it was worthy to note that the attack was just a dangerous campaign of calumny, trying so desperately to run down the towering profile of Senator Akume, who is one of the very few past governors without criminal records.

The APC also said the fraud allegation currently leveled against Senator Akume by Gov. Ortom and his government was clearly an act of political witch-hunt.
But in a swift reaction, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in a press statement signed by the Publicity Secretary Bemgba Iortyom, said crying wolf about the audit report being a witch-hunt was totally immaterial as the due process of law required Akume to prove his innocence before a competent authority when called upon to do so.
Bemgba said it was the position of Benue PDP that Akume should do the honourable needful by availing himself to answer to those cases of financial crimes so unearthed against him by the audit rather than resorting to sponsoring press conferences by a neophyte whose status is still unclear even within his party, the APC.

“The Akume era as governor witnessed numerous external intervention funding to the state for purposes of ecological, educational as well as social amenities development, yet there was scarcely any projects executed commensurate to those fundings, which were rather channeled to oiling a loose, irresponsible and extravagant lifestyle in official circles.

“It is the consequences of such a wasteful era that the Suswam administration battled with and passed on to the Ortom administration which today in the midst of hugely depleted revenue inflow coupled with debilitating security challenges, is still managing to pay salaries on a regular monthly basis, since mid-2018.

“Agada must also be enlightened to the fact that it was during Akume’s time as governor that the equity shares held by the state in Benue Cement Company were sold off, with the proceeds embezzled and to date not accounted for,” he added.

Earlier at the press conference, the APC questioned why the state government under Ortom had to now conjure a haphazard probe report about the Akume administration of many years saying same government had leveled N107billion 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?

“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 party stated.