Ortom tackles Alia over illegal recruitment accusation

Immediate past governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, Friday urged his successor, Governor Hyacinth Alia, to brace up for governance rather than cast aspersion on the past administration in the state.

Alia had accused his predecessor of carrying out recruitment into the Civil Service without due process; handing to him an empty treasury and looting government vehicles, among several other accusations.

The governor had on Thursday through his spokesman, Tersoo Kula, berated the Ortom administration of bad governance and urged him to seek forgiveness from the Benue people.

But in reaction, Ortom noted that it was unbecoming of the new governor whom he alleged did everything to frustrate him to the point of writing to banks not to honour any transaction by the outgoing government, stressing that, even at that, his (Ortom) administration still funded the May 29 inauguration.

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Ortom through his media aide, Terver Akase, stated that it was not the first time in less than two weeks of his assumption of office that Governor Alia would resort to using the former governor as a scapegoat by leveling all manner of blames and accusations on his predecessor.

“While we won’t go into a war of words with the governor despite the media trial, it is pertinent to clarify that the Ortom administration followed due process in recruiting the workers whom the present government sacked a few days ago.

“Vacancies were duly advertised in national newspapers and those who applied for the jobs were properly interviewed/screened and the successful ones were given appointment letters as required by Civil Service rules. Promotions were also carried out according to the laid down service regulations,” he said.

On the issue of vehicles, he said the present administration should be informed that it was the decision of the Benue State Executive Council that government officials including the governor and his deputy are given waivers to enable them to go with the official vehicles allocated to them.