From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi
The Director of Communications, Alia/Ode Campaign Council, Kula Tersoo, has explained that the Benue state Governor-elect, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia is currently on fire to heal and fix the state.
Kula stated this while explaining reasons his boss made formal communication to heads of government parastatals and financial institutions in the state.
While stating that the Governor-Elect took the decision in good faith and in the best interest of Benue, Kula noted that since his declaration by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the 2023 gubernatorial elections in the state, Alia has been completely ignored, neglected and treated with disdain by the outgoing Governor Samuel Ortom government.
“Where principles of public policy are valued, the day Fr. Alia collected his Certificate of Return, he expectedly became a respected property of the state and should, accordingly, be accorded due rights and privileges as the custodian of the Benue people’s mandate.
“The State Government is under obligation to provide him with a special accommodation, provide official cars for him, takeover his feeding and that of his staff and visitors.
“Moreover, where there is a mutually defined concern about the development of a state, the outgoing governor willingly ceases to make unilateral decisions on policy issues once his successor is issued a Certificate of Return.
“He makes policy decisions only in due consultations with the incoming Governor to avoid conflicting distraction on policy and administrative issues such as the ones under discourse.
“Every security briefing given to the outgoing administration is also submitted to the heads of the incoming administration. That is the standard practice and principle of a transition process in a democratic governance.”
He noted that, “It is rather sad that all decisions taken by Ortom’s administration presently negate every known principles of public policy.
According to Tersoo, every indigene of Benue state who is concerned about the development of the state is worried about the booby-traps the outgoing government of Samuel Ortom is setting for the incoming administration of Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia
“They are bothered that an administration that avoided recruiting into the civil service, indigenes of the state on the grounds of “paucity of funds” and “overbloated wage bill” for seven years and nine months of its tenure has, in a dramatic twist, suddenly embarked on the massive recruitment of thousands into the civil service barely two months to the expiration of its tenure? Have we forgotten that those already in service are still been owed several months of wages?
He recalled that in his first term in office, Governor Ortom promised to recruit 5,000 teachers. “He never did. Why embark on such an exercise now that he is already at the exit door?
“It is a well-known fact even that the outgoing administration has mindlessly plunged the state into hundreds of billions of debt profile and is desperately making clandestine arrangements to take more loans in the remaining two months to sustain his avaricious accumulation of wealth outside government.
“Why would a sane and sound mind like Rev. Alia who has come with a vision to heal and fix the land, not be worried?, he queried.