The Benue State governor, Samuel Ortom has disassociated
himself from the inscription on wheelbarrows bearing his name and alleging that
he had used same to empowered youths in the state.
Daily Trust reports that the social media had in the past
few days been awashed with pictures of wheelbarrows bearing "Gov. Ortom
for you" and suggestive that the governor distributed the carts to empower
youths of the state.
But, Ortom through his Chief Press Secretary, Terver Akase,
has denied the claims, saying rather that the consent of the governor was not
sought and that he did not give approval for anyone to inscribe his name on the
said wheelbarrows.
"Ortom is aware that the wheelbarrows in possession of
the State Emergency Management Agency (SEMA) were recently donated to the state
by the National Commission for Refugees, Migrants and Internally Displaced
Persons (NCFRMI) for victims of crisis in parts of the state so he couldn't
have claimed credit for the gesture.
"The Ortom administration has numerous laudable
empowerment schemes for youths of Benue but the donation of wheelbarrows to the
youths is not one of such schemes," he said.
Akase added that based on the development, the
governor has directed Secretary to the State Government to issue a query to the
Executive Secretary of SEMA, Boniface Ortese to explain why the said action was
taken by his office just as he ordered the agency to immediately remove the
inscription from all the affected wheelbarrows.
Our correspondent reports that the Federal Commissioner of
NCRMI, Sadiya Umar Farouq, had in December, last year led a team on
intervention visit to the state and donated relief items including the
wheelbarrows meant to ameliorate the sufferings of some persons of concern to
the commission.
"This mission is aimed at flagging off symbolic
distribution of relief materials (food and non-food items) to the IDPs and also
to have firsthand assessment of the IDPs situation in Benue State," she
had said.
SEMA had last week distributed the wheelbarrows alongside
farming implements such as hoes and cutlasses to displaced farmers to go back
to their farms as planting season begins.
Meanwhile, the Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) in the state, Bemgba Iortyom, has urged the government to also
remove the inscription of "Ortom for you" on the SDGs/MDGs project in
Makurdi in order to justify its sincerity of not taking credit for donors
projects..
By Hope Abah
