Former Governor of Benue State, George Akume, has said the peoples Democratic Party (PDP), that performed woefully in 16 years including failure to deliver on 6,000 megawatts of power must not be allowed to return to Aso Rock Presidential Villa.
This is even as he said the farmers/herders clashes were engineered by the Samuel Ortom led administration through the livestock guards, commending the federation government for putting a stop to it.
Akume, a two-term Governor on the platform of the PDP said this when he led a delegation of All Progressive Congress (APC), in Benue State to to meet with President Muhammmadu Buhari on Friday.
The Senator said, the Buhari-led administration has done remarkably well in the area of security, infrastructure and agriculture to deserve a second term.
“I am from the APC family but the truth remains that what has been done under this government is monumental, you cannot compare this with what we have been witnessing in the past administration which we always refer to as the Lancia regime, does of you who speak French will know what that means.
“Be it in the area if infrastructure you can see what is going on in the rail transportation. Yesterday (Thursday), we were at Keffi to flag off the Keffi-Alwanga-Lafia-Makurdi axis of that road. This is something that has been on the drawing board since 1999 when PDP came to power. If you look at what happened against the back drop of what happened in the area of power, again you will give kudos to this government.
“I recalled that in 2005, contracts were awarded for the purpose of increasing the power generation. We were told and we believed because we all supplied money – the local governments, states and federal, we put resources together to increase the power out of this country. And by the calculation of the government of the day, by 2007, 6,000 megawatts of power would have been added to the national grid, my God! By the end of May 2015, we were still hovering between 3,000 and 5,000 megawatts, the story is now different.
“When you talk of security, Boko Haram has taken over virtually the whole of Borno and Yobe States, that is different today. Yes, there is occasional incursion in some of the areas by Boko Haram remnants. Even America, which is one of the most powerful countries in the world has not been able to subdue the gorilla elements in Afghanistan. They are stilling hitting.
“So our performance is much better. I’m not saying we are America but when you talk about gorilla warfare, there is no way you can completely wrapped it up between two days or one year. So we are on a very safe grounds.
On the believe that the farmers/herders clash will affect the outcome of the elections for the APC in the state, Akume said, “When you talk of farmers/herders clash, have you heard of farmers/herders clash in Benue again? No. We know those who were behind that, government were behind that through the livestock guards, they knew what was going on. So the thing is no a thing of the past.”
The had in attendance the National Chairman of APC, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, the Benue APC Governorship candidate, Emmanuel Jime, elder statesman, and Paul Unongo, also had the Minister of Agriculture, Audu Ogbeh and the Minister of Information, Lai Mohammed, as part of the top government officials at the meeting.
Leave a comment