The Presidency has expressed surprise that the Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom has allowed workers’ salaries and pensioners’ pay to continue to accumulate despite that he benefited from the over one Trillion naira which the Federal Government advanced to States to clear arrears of salaries and pensions.
Senior Special Assistant to Present Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu, in a statement today, January 25, said that at various times, the President had lent money to the states in excess of N1.682 trillion and that Governor Ortom’s state did not miss out on all occasions.
The bailout loans, according to Garba Shehu were the salary bailout, Excess Crude Loan and Budget Support loan, each repayable in 20 years.
“Lagos for instance didn’t collect any of the loans. A few other states declined to take one or two. Mr Ortom, an office holder who collected on all occasions, currently holds the country’s longest record of unpaid salaries and pensions and has no reason, absolutely no reason, to blame President Buhari for the mess in which he put his state and its workers.”
Garba Shehu, who reacted to Governor Ortom’s attack on President Buhari over none payment of workers and pensioners in his state, wondered why the President who inherited a lot of financial problems but still able to pay federal workers as and when due would be part of the fraud about none payment of Benue States workers.
According to Garba Shehu, President Buhari inherited unpaid salaries and pension arrears, adding: “this is a President who has not failed to pay the salary of those working for the federal government and declared the failure of states to do so “a national disaster.”
He said that instead of Governor Ortom to accept that he is “a national disaster” and find a way to raise the funds to pay the workers, he is blaming the President.
“Having first come claiming that his predecessors created the arrears, it was his business to prove that he was better by paying. Instead of doing that, he joined them!
“And while he runs up even further salary and pension debts on top of those he was bequeathed, instead of respecting the voters who elected him to office, he publicly attacks them in unprintable words and has raised his own thuggish militia to harass and violate them.
“The Governor now claims the voters wish to be “rescued by the PDP” and “regret voting for Buhari.
“The voters, of course, will not be asked to vote for the President again because – as a leader – President Buhari and the All Progressives Congress, APC respect term limits and the constitution, and will stand down next year at the end of his second democratically elected mandate. “It seems unlikely, however, that any voter would seriously consider it possible to be “rescued” by a party that would today, allow a politician such as Governor Ortom in its ranks.
“What is certain, however, is that Nigeria has had enough of failed politicians who blame others as a diversion for their inability to improve citizens’ lives.”
