<<< By Jimin Geoffrey >>>
Governor Samuel Ortom has described the purported suspension of 15 PDP members of the Benue State House of Assembly by seven of their APC colleagues as well as the claim to serve him an impeachment notice as illegal and display of impunity.
He stated this today at the Benue Peoples House Makurdi while addressing the press on recent political developments in the state.
Governor Ortom said it was the height of illegality for an impeached speaker to preside over an Assembly with only eight members, noting that an already subsisting court order restraining him from parading himself as speaker further made the sitting a nullity.
While responding to allegations of corruption and non performance levelled against him by the eight members of the Assembly as justification for the impeachment move, he asked where the speaker and seven others were for the past three years that they could not raise such issues.
He described the allegations as unfounded and unsubstantiated, stressing that laudable projects executed by his administration in education, health, agriculture and infrastructure abound for the public to see.
The Governor appealed to President Muhammadu Buhari to call the Inspector General of Police and the Director General of the State Security Services to order, adding that the siege on the State Assembly by the security agencies was against the tenets of democracy.
Reacting to comments credited to the factional national chairman of the APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomole that he was no longer marketable, Governor Ortom described Oshiomole as an overzealous party chairman who has usurped the powers of the President, Police and even ministers.
He advised Comrade Oshiomole to concentrate on the running of the party saying his utterances have contributed in causing mass exodus from the party.