Nigeria: 100 Days – PDP Urges Governor Alia to Make Public Accruals to the State

Makurdi — The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Benue state has asked Governor Hyacinth Alia to make public the total accruals to the state since he took over the reins of governance in the state for the purpose of transparency.

The party in a statement, Thursday in Makurdi by its Publicity Secretary, Bemgba Iortyom urged the governor to render accounts of how he had been solely expending the state’s funds.

The opposition party’s statement came against the backdrop of the governor’s cancellation of a scheduled media parley to mark his 100 days in office but later at night featured in a state-owned radio programme.

The PDP said: “The governor who, obviously fearing a roasting-alive in an interactive engagement with the press, following his pathetically poor take-off in office so far, preferred to sit down to a monologue on the radio saying things which pass him off as a victim of extreme self-deceit.

“The PDP challenges Governor Alia to back his claims on radio last night about the security situation in the state by taking journalists on a tour to prove that he has restored peace and security such that displaced persons are going back to their farms.

“The governor should open the books and publish how much he has received from Internally Generated Revenue, IGR, as well as from federal sources including monthly FAAC allocations, stamp duty levies, VAT, counterpart grants and others.

“Governor Alia should lift the veil off his sole administratorship and render account of his expenditure so far as tallies with his claims on how he has been running the state.

“The Benue State governor should not be deluded by vainglory or praise-singers to assume that the world believes all is well in the state just because he has cast a blanket of silence over reportage of continuing insecurity made worse by killings of innocent people by bandits who he refers to as his ‘brothers in the bush’.

“The governor should beware that it is the right of the people to know how he is expending their commonwealth, and this is a right the people will enforce sooner or later.”