Ibekimi Oriamaja Reports
In Benue State, the All Progressives Congress (APC) was challenged yesterday by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) over its request that the House of Assembly remove Governor Samuel Ortom over allegations of interfering with local government administration.
At a news conference held at the party’s headquarters in Makurdi and addressed by its state publicity secretary, Mr. Bemgba Iortyom, PDP expressed its growing concern over the actions of APC as the state’s opposition party.
According to PDP, a legal dispute is already ongoing regarding the opposition party’s egregious inability to comply with such basic legal obligations as fielding candidates for the 2023 elections. Additionally, it stated that a few observations should be made regarding the APC’s repeated errors in matters of state administration and policy, such as when it called for the impeachment of Governor Samuel Ortom at a press conference it addressed in Makurdi for what it called mismanagement of the local government tier of the state’s administration.
“First off, it should be noted that Governor Samuel Ortom does not run the local government administrations in Benue State; rather, the executive branch of the state government, which is led by him, only exercises oversight over that tier of government in accordance with clear-cut constitutional provisions, which do not include constituting and inaugurating councils.
“Local government council chairmen are vested with such responsibility, and if in the course of exercising this, they have inaugurated the vice chairmen—which is a fact against the lie by APC that they have not been inaugurated, but have encountered delays for a period of less than two months, which we are aware is for purpose of consensus building and harmony within the system—it should be understandable, especially to a party like APC under which it took Presidency—especially to a party like A
“It is the guarantees from PDP as the supporting platform for those local government administrations as well as the Ortom administration that the right thing is being done at those councils as we are aware that no council chairman has thus far acted outside of their legal powers, even though they have so very early shown through decisive steps that they will consolidate on the achievements of their predecessors and thereby continue on the trajectory of improvement of governance at.
