From Abraham Uwuasom
Special Adviser on Media and ICT, Mr Tahav Agerzua, has described former Governor Gabriel Suswam’s outburst against his successor, Samuel Ortom, at the weekend, as a manifestation of envy.
Mr Agerzua made the observation today while fielding questions on the former Governor’s comments when journalists confronted him at Government House.
The Adviser said the immediate past Governor was envious that his successor had engraved his name in gold and in the hearts of the people for passing the anti-open grazing law and commencing its implementation which he could not achieve in eight years.
He said there could be no other justification for the former Governor to be challenging the monthly wage bill figures close to three years after he left office.
The Adviser noted that the measures taken to prune the wage bill must have also unsettled the former Governor who it seems has vested interests.
Mr Agerzua urged journalists to consider Dr Suswam as unreliable and untruthful having contradicted his interview in Leadership Newspaper on the monthly wage bill in February 2015, and having earlier denied the sale of BCC shares for which he was later charged to court for selling the shares and diverting the proceeds.
On the former Governor’s allegation that he was being persecuted, Mr Agerzua appealed to him to take basic lessons in English which will enable him to distinguish between prosecution and persecution.
According to the Adviser, the former Governor was being prosecuted by mostly Federal Government agencies for graft, kleptomania, and illegal possession of fire arms.
He dismissed former Governor Suswam’s claim that Governor Ortom was doing nothing, but busy trading blames, and urged him to rather express gratitude to his successor for impacting positively on several sectors, including the face-lift for his alma mata, Government College Makurdi, which he allowed to rot, during his eight-year tenure.
Mr Agerzua added that since Dr Suswam has promised to tender documents bordering on the wage bill, he should also make public documents to clear his name on allegations of monumental looting of Benue State funds amounting to over N107 billion between 2007 and 2015.