Ortom is known for having the longest record of unpaid salaries despite collecting different multi-billion naira loans.
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, says Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom, shouldn’t be blamed for owing salaries of workers and pensioners.
Ortom is known for having the longest record of unpaid salaries despite collecting different multi-billion naira loans.
Many workers under the state employ have been complaining of being owed several months’ salaries.
Speaking in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, Obi said Ortom shouldn’t be blamed for owing salaries because the governor usually spent millions of Naira monthly to run the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) camps across the state.
“Benue State is spending several millions to keep all these IDP camps running. There is no way all these things won’t cost Benue State about half a billion Naira monthly to keep them going.
“And then you go round and say they are owing salaries, owing contractors or they are owing anybody, it shows that they have to do those first before thinking about any other thing; because these people have to live. And ordinary, these shouldn’t be problem of Benue State, it should be the problem of Nigeria,” Obi said.