Benue PDP Should Seek Forgiveness, Not Grandstand – Governor Alia Says

Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia has described as pathetic the approach by the State Chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which imposed untold pains and penury on the people of the state through its maladministration, is still bold enough to call for the reversal of the same decisions that their leader, former governor Samuel Ortom, took shortly after assuming office in 2015.

He pointedly said that the PDP should rather apologise to the Benue people, seek forgiveness and stop grandstanding and playing to the gallery to mocking the badly deprived people of the state.

The Governor also said that it was even more laughable that while in government, the PDP deliberately refused to perform its mandate of delivering democratic dividends to the good people of Benue state, only to now turn around to blame its failures on former President Muhammadu Buhari.

Governor Alia, who stated these while responding to a press conference addressed on Wednesday, June 7th, 2023 by the PDP in the State, stressed that the opposition party in the State cannot be ignorant of the fact that all the appointments and recruitments that were carried out by former Governor Samuel Ortom at the twilight of his administration, were not done in good faith.

A statement by the his Chief Press Secretary, Sir Kula Tersoo noted that the suspicious move by former Governor Ortom should prick the conscience of the PDP to question his motive rather than shift the blame to Rev Fr. Alia and his new administration, stressing that Governor Alia had warned about it before and after he was elected into office.

The statement further stated; “Is it not curious that for more than 7 years, Ortom could not employ indigents of the state into the Civil Service, until a few months to the expiration of his tenure?

“It is even more ironic that the PDP, that is now crying wolf, left government house owing salaries of Benue Civil Servants from December 2022 to May 2023. The same PDP administration left salary arrears of 5 months for state government workers in 2017; 10 months for Local Government workers in the same year, 2017. Under this same PDP government, pensions were last paid in the year 2021.

“Additionally, the PDP government presided over a severely demotivated bureaucracy in the state. Yet, all former governor Ortom and the PDP could do was to conduct a sham recruitment exercise, instead of clearing the pending arrears.

“This is a moral burden that should worry the former governor and his conscienceless adherents. We believe this is the hardship the PDP satirically spoke about during their press conference.

“This, we are very certain because the PDP looted Government House to a point that the new government under Governor Hyacinth Alia, met no single car or truck in Government House. The governor’s visits to agencies and Parastatals have uncovered the highest level of rot ever witnessed in the history of Benue State.

“Yet, the PDP apologists who should claim responsibility for being architects of the locusts days in Benue have turned around to shift the blame to a committed democrat who has credibly commenced the process of resetting the state.

“The same party that left an empty treasury in the state and ripped off the economic system of the people is now claiming to be standing on high moral grounds to offer untenable and ill-motivated criticisms to undermine the collective wisdom of the Benue populace.

“The level of decay caused by the immediate past administration stinks in the severely vandalized offices of state civil servants, such that the new government must have to start from the scratch to acquire the necessary equipment for the system to start working again,” Tersoo said.

The statement specifically said that there was no doubt that the Governor Alia, has hit the ground running, adding that just a week and a few days after assuming office, he had taken key decisions and deliberate steps that have received applause from the majority of the Benue electorate.

Tersoo said that from the key decisions and his approach to governance so far, Benue people are basking in a renewed hope that Governor Alia will fulfil his campaign promises.

While commending the PDP as the main opposition party in the state for settling down to play the role of the opposition, the State government however warned the party should not go overboard to make the Benue people angrier, bearing in mind that the party has not been forgiven for the unprecedented devastation it caused the people of the state.

Tersoo advised the PDP to only raise issues that will contribute to reclaiming the lost glory of the state that was perpetrated by their leadership.

The State Government noted that States such as Rivers, Oyo, Bauchi, etc. were equally PDP controlled states during the Buhari’s regime, but the governors, who were Ortom’s friends, left behind visible developmental footprints.

Tersoo further said; “They did not fold their hands to later blame their incapacity on the former president.

We advise the good people of Benue state not to lose any sleep over the actions so far taken by Governor Hyacinth Iormem Alia, as the governor is only out to sanitise the rotten system created by the outgone PDP administration in the state.

“More importantly, the party’s Wednesday press conference should serve as a message to the Benue people that PDP will perform better in opposing the actions of the government in power (whether good or bad), especially now that the party has better ideas including those on how to secure the state, more than when they were in government.

“And this, the Benue electorate must ensure it remains the party’s role for many years,” he said.