David Mark vs. Samuel Ortom

Ihave read the terse and obviously hurriedly written statement by David Mark’s spokesman who happens to be my age old personal friend Paul Mumeh.

In the statement David Mark regurgitates the sorry statements he made as a guest of Governor Nyesome Wike in Port Harcourt. The former Senate President disparaged his state governor in unprintable words probably as a show of gratitude for the lavish reception he was accorded.

Paul Mumeh’s statement in which he reeled out David Mark’s accomplishments to prove his superiority over Govenor Samuel Ortom is a sad testimony to the erosion of values which has elevated the wrong people and imposed filthy role models on us. He talks about David Mark being a Governor in his early 30s. He didn’t tell us which election he won to achieve that.

I remember as a student in the University in 1988 when David Mark dismissed our anti-SAP demonstration caused by increase in fuel prices with the derisory words “students don’t own cars”. He should have remembered that students don’t own cars but they pay transport fares. A person who has times without number shown such disdain for the downtrodden cannot be their spokesman overnight.

I hear Paul Mumeh refer to him as a “Statesman”, but a statesman as opposed to an ordinary politician should be more circumspect and he evaluates all information given to him dispassionately before offering his wise counsel to the person concerned. If David Mark who is a Benue indigene feels strongly about a so called wheelbarrow project, Government House Port Harcourt isn’t Governor Ortom’s known address. His statement was meant to achieve one purpose - mischief.

David Mark’s acclaimed successes in life have only feathered his own nest and have not reflected on his immediate environment. He was Senate President for eight years but the Makurdi-Oturkpo Federal Highway remains a death trap where scores of his constituents have perished due to its neglect in successive budgets. The road which is a vital link between the South East and the North especially for movement of goods is virtually deserted. Traders who should ply that route now go through KOGI state.

Governor Ortom never purchased wheel barrows for distribution to anybody. The carts were donated to the Benue State Emergency Management Agency as part of relief materials for displaced persons due to communal clashes. It is true that an overzealous official put up Ortom’s inscriptions on them hence the current hoopla.

Kenneth Gyado, Abuja.