Gov. Ortom Threatens To Sack Appointees Seeking Elective Positions

Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom has threatened to sack any of his appointees seeking elective position in 2019 who failed to heed his directive to resign on or before May 29.

Ortom, who sounded the warning, yesterday, while presenting the score card of his administration in the last three years, cautioned that he had already directed the Secretary to the State Government, SSG, to take note of the directive.

He said: “I am at liberty to sack anyone found contravening the directive. I know it is not a crime for anyone to want to contest an election.

“However, it will be a huge distraction to remain in office and at the same time engage in politicking and soliciting for votes. The office you occupy will suffer. So it is better to vacate the office and concentrate on politicking in order to allow others take up the responsibility.”

The governor, who scored his administration high in all sectors, despite the security challenges and the humanitarian crisis his government had to contend with, following the ceaseless herdsmen crisis in the state, said, the state government had recorded some milestones in the last three years. He identified healthcare delivery, infrastructural development, security, education and agricultural development and transformation as key areas his administration had recorded impressive results.

The governor said: “When we came in, we had issues of backlog of salaries and ghost workers, we have been able to tackle that challenge, today workers are paid their salaries as and when due and we are also making efforts to clear the backlog as soon as possible.

“We have also made sure that farmers get inputs and fertilizers at highly subsidized rate annually which has boosted agricultural production, aside from ensuring that our medical students at the Benue State University Teaching Hospital, BSUTH, who were stagnated for over 12 years, were graduated. On the whole, we have graduated 152 doctors in the institution in the last four years.”