Mkor Aondona Donatus, your social media post attacking Chief Samuel Ortom, the former Governor of Benue State, was replete with malice, hatred, and a clear intent to harm his reputation.
In your capacity as special adviser on research and documentation to the incumbent governor, doesn’t your unawareness of Governor Ortom’s initiatives to revive state-owned industries during his tenure seem inconsistent with your role?
The planned privatization of Igumale Cement Factory involved handing the company to a private investor with industry competence. Why would a government intending to privatize its enterprises spend billions in public funds on them?
If you had done a little research as your job schedule demands, you would have noticed that the Ortom administration stood out in the area of transparency. When the State Government under Chief Ortom considered the idea of privatizing and commercializing government enterprises, the Governor called a meeting of stakeholders in the state and informed them to seek their opinions. When the majority opinion of the people was not in favour of the proposed privatization, Governor Ortom immediately directed relevant agencies of government to discontinue the process. I wonder if the government you serve in does the same.
Your question bordering on why Chief Ortom had to approach the courts regarding his persecution by the present administration, this again implies that you are either on a voyage of mischief or you genuinely do not know that any individual has the right to approach the courts to seek justice.
When Governor Hyacinth Alia set up the probe commission, his predecessor, Chief Ortom, expressed his willingness to cooperate with the commission as long as the investigation was carried out in line with the law. The caveat was very clear that if the probe was not conducted as a form of witch-hunt, he would have no problems with it.
But the State Government unsurprisingly put His Excellency Ortom in its own dock for trial and summarily passed a guilty verdict on him even before the probe began. All manner of aspersions have been hurled at the former governor by officials of the present government in a manner that reveals their ulterior motive – persecution.
But even now, Chief Ortom has not changed his disposition towards the probe commission. He has not gone to court to argue that he is above the probe. The grounds of his case before the courts are explicit, and we expected that you would seek to counter the issues rather than engage in emotional spouts on social media.
You ought to have known that Governor Ortom had no hand in the arrest and detention of Senator Gabriel Suswam by the Department of State Services, DSS in 2017, as there was no report or petition from the then Governor, Chief Ortom or his administration to the DSS regarding Senator Suswam, for whatever reason.
In July 2007, Governor Ortom, while speaking about the efforts made by his administration following the outcome of the Justice Kpojime Commission of Inquiry, said the government had recovered N4.5 billion from a capital market bond deal entered into by the government of his predecessor, involving a new generation bank. He added that the Securities and Exchange Commission was compelled to make the refund, while San Calos Limited, one of the indicted companies, also refunded N370 million to the state government. The records of all these are there for you to verify and desist from whipping up sentiments to mislead the people.
We need not dignify your claim that Governor Ortom probed and indicted former Governor George Akume, because such a probe only took place in your imagination.
Your allegation that Oracle Business Limited which His Excellency Ortom founded but resigned its chairmanship long before he became Governor was not paying taxes during his time in office is another blatant lie manufactured only to cast aspersions on the image of the former Governor. You ought to have known that the Oracle Conglomerate, like any other company, operates as a corporate citizen and has the legal right to bid for contracts under any administration.
However, if you have evidence that the companies which Chief Ortom founded engaged in illegal government contracts of any kind, please make such evidence public.
We equally demand that you substantiate your claim that Governor Ortom signed several Memoranda of Understanding (MOUs) with Chinese companies for the supply of industrial machinery but the machines were diverted to his private company. Failure to provide evidence to support your allegation here will leave us with no other option than to take legal action against you.
Talking about accountability, one wonders how transparent the present administration is. Since fuel subsidy was removed in May last year, monthly allocations to states have increased by 400 percent, yet, the present government has not disclosed to anyone what is being done with the funds.
The government is silent on how much it is receiving from Abuja and what it is doing with the funds at the state and local government levels. The government is equally silent on the Internally Generated Revenue, IGR of the state, as well as all the interventions from the Federal Government running into billions.
Terver Akase
Former Special Adviser to H.E Ortom
November 9, 2024.
