WEDNESDAY- 19th September, 2021: Some traditional rulers of Tiv extraction in Benue State have appealed to the state Governor Smauel Ortom following the N60 billion libel suit instituted against the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume.
The traditional rulers are seeking for the withdrawal of the case.
CEOAFRICA had earlier reported that the governor filed a case against Senator Akume over allegations of corruption he made against him during a press conference in Abuja.
Governor Ortom, however, insisted that Akume, a former governor of the State must recant and apologize, explaining that the corruption allegations leveled against him were weighty, stressing that the honourable thing to do was to give the Minister an opportunity to prove the allegations in a court of law.
Ortom noted that in order not to disappoint the traditional rulers who paid him a courtesy visit in Makurdi on Tuesday over the crisis, the Minister should recant his position through another press conference and tender a public apology for his actions.
He lamented that it was ridiculous for the former lawmaker to have called on security agencies in the country to come and retrieve cutlasses and den guns in the hands of Benue farmers without questioning the Ak-47 and other sophisticated weapons being used by their attackers who have sacked the farmers from their ancestral homes.
Governor Ortom revealed that he had already constituted a committee to probe the administration of Senator Akume as Governor, stressing that he would file a case against the Minister at the anti-graft agencies after the investigations were concluded.
The Spokesman for the traditional rulers, Chief Daniel Abomtse who made the appeal, also called on the Minister to recant his allegations against the Governor for the sake of peace.
The traditional rulers condemned the call for the dissolution of democratically elected government in Benue State or the truncation of same under any guise.
They frowned at attempts to change the narrative on the killings in Benue for political gains, stressing that profiling Governor Ortom as a tribal messiah who fans embers of ethnic bigotry was false and should be resisted by those who mean well for the State.
