Gov Ortom using criticisms to divert attention, APC chieftain alleges

All Progressives Congress, APC chieftain, Garus Gololo has said that the Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom was using criticisms on President Muhammadu Buhari to divert attention from good governance in the state.

Specifically, Gololo condemned alleged statement credited to the governor that military juntas were better than President Buhari’s administration.

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja the party leader, asked stakeholders to call Ortom to order, insisting that the governor should focus on delivering good governance to the state instead of “frivolously attacking the President.”

Gololo, who is the national chairman of a political pressure group, Northern Conscience for 2023, NCfor2023, also claimed that Governor Ortom had not shown enough appreciation to the APC even though the party “accepted and rehabilitated him when the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP abandoned him.”

“The PDP refused to give him a governorship ticket. It was the APC that considered him even when he lacked the political capital to win a primary election in his Bajumba, Gumar Local Government Area.

“The governor was hiding behind the curtain of his inability to deliver infrastructural facilities for the state eight years after assuming office.

“Take for instance the visit of the Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, to the state. Ortom could only present him with Tiv dancers. Meanwhile, when he was in Rivers State, Wike presented him with options of projects to commission.

“Any visitor to Benue will confirm that Governor Ortom had not built, not to talk of commissioning a single road project in the state even after spending eight years in office,” Gololo stressed.

He went further: “The governor is making a habit of reckless, unfounded and un-educative comments about a democratically elected government. It is logical to say that Ortom is calling for an end to democracy in the country.

“For a governor who has not paid workers salaries for all these years; and who has been owing pensioners since 2015 leading to the death of men and women who sacrificed their lives for the country, and for someone who has not commissioned a block of project for eight years, not even a gutter; despite the humongous sums released to the state by the federal government, to turn back and accused the Buhari administration recklessly, shows a lack of sincerity.”

While challenging Ortom to test his popularity by contesting for President in the 2023 elections, Gololo added that the road to the governor’s village is as deplorable as roads leading to Mali, Niger and war torn Libya.

He added that the governor “has mortgaged shame and decency for unnecessary verbal attacks on the Presidency.”