Benue needs good governance not press conferences, APC chieftain tackles Ortom

A chieftain of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), in Benue state, Dr Garus Gololo, has urged the Benue state governor, Samuel Ortom, to focus on bringing the dividends of democracy to the people, rather than indulging in “endless media interview.”

He also criticized the governor for distracting public attention from his administration’s failures by fishing around for imaginary enemies.
Reaction to a Channels Television interview granted on Monday by Ortom, the lawyer through a statement released Wednesday in Abuja, regretted that “in Nigeria, under performing public servants have mastered the art of creating distractions and diverting the attention of the people from real issues of governance.”

Gololo who said despite receiving N402.05 billion from the Federation Allocation Committee (FAAC), Loans and Paris Club Refund and Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) the state has nothing to show for it, the APC chieftain added that “the Benue state government under Ortom cannot boast of any significant project it has commissioned since 2015. 

Whether road constructed and completed, healthcare facilities began and finished, new school blocks the administration put in place; there’s just nothing one can point to and say Governor Ortom’s administration did this.”

He also alleged that the governor and his team did not also deploy the funds in settling outstanding salaries and pensions owed civil servants.

Insisting that it was high time these funds were deployed to uplift the living standards of the people, the lawyer enjoined the governor Ortom to “at least complete the construction of the road to his hometown in Guma local government area.

That road is now a death trap. It is barely motorable in dry season, and it is entirely a squalor in rainy season.

And the project began when Ortom assumed office. More than Six years after the road has almost grounded economic activities on that axis.

These are the real issues not to be granting one press conference after another making phantom and spurious allegations.”

On recent claims by the Benue state governor that the state was open to creating cattle ranches, Gololo advised Ortom to take “his eyes away from the recent money disbursed to the Katsina state government to start ranches.

Ortom has never hidden his disdain for ranches. He was in the fore front of the campaign against Ranching.

Check his media interviews and you’ll see how much disdain he harbours for the policy.”