Benue PDP insists on Akume’s probe
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue State says Governor Samuel Ortom must probe Senator George Akume’s tenure as governor of the state.
Ortom has repeatedly maintained that the probe commissions which he established to probe his predecessor are not out to witch-hunt anyone but only to uncover what took place before his administration came to power in May.
But the PDP, while addressing newsmen at its secretariat in Makurdi, said it supports the demands for probity, transparency and accountability if the many probes by the Ortom’s government do not leave out anyone.
State deputy chairman of PDP, Dr. Tsetim Ayargwer, flanked by other officials of the party, accused the governor of limiting his probe to only the former governor, Gabriel Suswam’s administration, a situation they said is not tenable since his mandate as governor empowers him to take responsibility for both assets and liabilities of the state right from the day of creation.
“We therefore state unequivocally that the probe exercises, both here in the state and at the EFCC, must necessarily cover all periods which need to be probed for the exercise to be deep and far-reaching enough to yield any meaningful and worthwhile results. And in this light, it becomes impossible to seriously probe the Suswam administration without probing the administration of his predecessor, George Akume, considering the circumstances which surrounded the transition of power between the two administrations,” the PDP said.
The party further stated that its official position which “was derived from glaring and verifiable facts on ground is that the Ortom administration remains a colossal failure and the worst, in terms of performance”.
Meanwhile, Ortom’s media aide, Tahav Agerzua, blamed what he called the PDP’s regular outburst against his principal’s activities on the “deadly blow it suffered at the recent polls when the party lost most of its controlled seats in the state to the governor’s All Progressives Congress (APC)”.
Agerzua maintained that the governor cannot probe Akume’s regime because he did not take over from the senator.