Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom recently spoke with reporters in Lagos on his efforts to recover looted funds, his projects and moves to ensure lasting peace in the Food Basket state. Musa Odoshimokhe was there.
hat is government doing to make Benue better than you met it?
The challenge before us is how to pull our state out of ignorance, poverty and disease. These challenges have become acute in the face of dwindling fortunes of the Nigeria’s economy as a result of falling oil prices. As things stand now, governments at all levels have a herculean task of fulfilling their obligations. We must sincerely return to agriculture as a way of boosting our economy. Our government has put in place ingenious initiatives to boost agricultural production as listed in the 2016 budget. We must also provide the necessary infrastructure to boost our rural economy. The Ministry of Works and Transport shall be given the additional mandate of Power and Energy; this will now function as Ministry of Works, Transport and Energy.
We met a debt of over N169 billion and still expect more as we continue to verify. We borrowed to commence the payment of salaries, implementation of minimum wage to teachers, take-off of our administration as well as the clearing of salary arrears of workers at the local government and state levels.
The Federal Government also came to our rescue with a loan of N28 billion, which has helped in no small measure to tackle the salary arrears challenge and we hope that help shall also come for us to pay arrears of pensions and gratuities.
Despite these, we recorded milestones which made a difference in the lives of the people. These include early composition of the state executive council. We hit the ground running, trimming the size of government and introduction of cost saving measures. We introduced amnesty program to tackle the security challenges that we met on assumption.
How has the peace initiative introduced by your administration work out?
The first part of the programme we embarked on to make peace return to the state was through the Carrot Approach. This yielded positive results with the surrender of over 700 youths, 500 assorted arms and thousands of ammunition. The beneficiaries, who have undergone a retreat, are being sorted out into various aspects of the programme. These include a return to school, skills acquisition and integration into the information gathering system of the security apparatus. The result of the amnesty programme has increased security of lives and property. The confrontation between herders and farmers has minimized.
Government has sought to unite the state through other programme like projecting our dress code towards unity and and peace. This is symbolised in what we do and wear. Our dress code represents the Tiv, Idoma and Igede, the three dominant tribes in Benue. We want to govern a state where all the ethnic groups see themselves as one. Remarkably, many people are embracing the dress code. That is a loud statement on unity.
What is your plan for turn the economy for the state?
We want to stimulate the economy and allow the private sector do profitable businesses. There are plans to dispose off some facilities. Even the facilities owned by government will be sold or leased out. For instance, the tomatoes factory at Wanune, we have someone who is interested in it and we had discussed on how it could be made better. The same thing goes to other industries which can survive well in private ownership. The People are waiting to either lease or buy them. We want these factories to become operational as quickly as possible. This will generate employment for Benue people and stimulate the economy. These factories will also provide opportunities to local farmers and other local businesses, to supply raw materials and other things.
The Elizabeth Kpojime Commission of Inquiry discovered that N219 billion was looted. How are you handling this?
If I have N219 billion, I will do wonders for this state. It is a lot of money. Let them bring back the money and even the other N802 billion we are talking about. Even that one, there are issues over it.
We want to pay salaries, we want to pay pensioners their money, we want to pay gratuity and we want to fulfill our contractual obligations, including the ones we inherited.
With N219 billion, it is enough to solve these problems. It we get the money, nobody will talk about bailout again. I can even take from it to repay the Federal Government the amount they gave us as bailout fund.
We need rural roads, we need electricity, and we want our hospitals to work. We want our schools to be functional. This is where this money will go. So, it is imperative we recover.
There is no political settlement on this matter of our commonwealth. It is very important they pay back the money.
I invited stakeholders last year and they were unanimous that refund must be made on commonwealth. So, there will be nothing like settlement.
If you can make refund, I have no case against you. If you said you took N10 billion and you refund the N10 billion, I will tell you to go and sin no more. But, where you cannot, this is when I will have problems with you.
All parties were invited, non-partisan people were also invited and stakeholders in Benue unanimously approved the commission’s work. I want to assure you that I’m not alone in this business of knowing how our commonwealth was spent. Those who are in doubt at least from the presentations of the chairman’s report can appreciate that over one trillion came to the state within the space of this eight years that we are talking about and over N200 billion was not accounted for. Then you can begin to appreciate why we have salary arrears, pensions and gratuity of over N69 billion out of the 219 billion. You can now see why you have contracts and jobs that were done and were unaccounted for. You can now see why we are still having challenges. You can see why civil servants who have retired are not receiving their gratuity and pensions. You can now see why the debt profile of the state went that high. You can now understand why some people are desperate to discredit this government, for trying to bring to light what they did in the past.
What have you achieved in terms of infrastructure development?
Following the payment of part of the money owed the contractor of the water works in Katsina-Ala and Otukpo, the taps are now flowing in the two towns. Similar payment has ensured resumption of work on the Daudu-Gbajimba road. Work is also on-going on the completion of the House of Assembly Complex in Makurdi. The resumption of the Benue State University and payment for accreditation of its programme at the College of Health Sciences has led to the graduation of the first set of 27 pioneer doctors, who had spent 12 years at the institution. There is massive on-going renovation at the School of Nursing and Midwifery in Makurdi, preparatory to re-accreditation which the school lost for three years. We purchased and installed a new transmitter at Radio Benue which has improved its services and coverage,
In partnership with the Federal Ministry of Communication Technology and the Rockefeller Foundation we trained over 2,000 youths for on-line job opportunities. Our commitment to the payment of counterpart funding has seen the return of development partners who were leaving the state in their numbers. These are just the major highlights of some of the things we have been able to do since the assumption of office.
Our target in government remains the implementation of the core objectives of “Our Collective Vision for a New Benue”. This will be done in accordance with the APC manifesto, this, I reassure you of our commitment and with the fear of God. This shall translate to the entrenchment of core values that make development inevitable.
Whenever I tell you that our administration has zero tolerance for corruption, I mean it. We shall pursue and recover for the state public money and property converted to personal use. Once we receive the reports of the various investigative panels, we shall tell you who took from the commonwealth of the people and how we shall recover every kobo and property of the people in the hands of anybody no matter how highly placed.
