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Alia, Ortom in war of words over ₦100bn loan approval in Benue
On Sunday, Benue State Governor Hyacinth Alia traded barbs with his predecessor, Samuel Ortom, concerning the recent endorsement of a ₦100 billion loan by the State House of Assembly.
The Assembly granted the approval during an urgent session last Friday, responding to Alia’s proposal to secure the funds for various infrastructure initiatives throughout the state.
Alia explained that the borrowing would support efforts like upgrading and outfitting 23 general hospitals, improving and building science-focused schools across the state, and finishing current road, bridge, drainage, and power initiatives.
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Additional uses encompass establishing skills training facilities, constructing and furnishing smart schools in every federal constituency, and developing and equipping the Benue State University of Agriculture, Science and Technology in Ihugh, among further endeavors.
The local branch of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), via its spokesperson Tim Nyor, criticized the Assembly’s decision on Friday, asserting that the Alia government has already benefited from considerable federal funding over the last two years.
In response, Alia, speaking through his press secretary Kula Tersoo, countered the PDP’s remarks, charging Ortom’s tenure with spreading hardship by neglecting salary and pension payments.
Alia labeled Ortom’s eight-year leadership as a major setback that saddled the state with massive debts and stalled growth.
“For the avoidance of doubt, the PDP-led administration, especially that of Samuel Ortom, by their own admission, left behind a staggering direct debt burden of ₦187.7 billion, a weight that has constrained the state’s finances and development capacity.
“This administration later discovered that the figure was grossly understated and uncovered an additional ₦170 billion owed through local government areas. It is unbelievable that Ortom’s administration accumulated this humongous debt and still refused to pay civil servants and pensioners their entitlements.”
“Furthermore, it is shocking that the Ortom government, after receiving several financial interventions from the Federal Government — including bailout funds, LNG funds, and two tranches of the Paris Club debt refund — alongside unexplained direct borrowing, still handed over to Fr. Alia a debt profile of ₦187.7 billion, twelve months’ arrears of salaries for state civil servants, ten months’ arrears for local government staff, about thirty-six months’ pension arrears, and a landscape of collapsed infrastructure across the state, bringing the total debt to ₦359 billion”, the statement read.
Ortom quickly hit back through a release from his communications aide, Terver Akase, accusing Alia of dodging key issues raised by critics rather than facing them head-on.
Ortom pointed out that even with federal allocations to Benue surging by over 500 percent, Alia has not achieved significant advancements and prefers drawing comparisons to his forerunner.
He clarified that upon exiting office, several federal approvals were in the pipeline, such as the remaining portion of the ₦41 billion bailout and a ₦20 billion loan from the Central Bank of Nigeria.
Ortom added that the state anticipated reimbursements worth billions for fuel subsidy removals and SURE-P allocations.
Moreover, he claimed Alia has not updated residents on the receipt or application of SURE-P funds.
The ex-governor faulted Alia for not clarifying a ₦68.3 billion deal to fix a 13-kilometer stretch from Wurukum Roundabout to the Air Force Base in Makurdi.
“To date, the Alia government has not provided any explanation in response to the concerns raised. The government has similarly kept sealed lips on probing questions regarding the ₦73 billion reportedly approved for a road project leading to the governor’s village in Mbadede, Vandeikya Local Government Area.
“Each time Governor Alia is confronted with questions bordering on transparency in governance or the welfare of Benue people, his reflex action is to attack Chief Ortom instead of providing facts and figures.
“This pattern of behaviour, now clearly habitual, smacks of an administration that is averse to probity and intent on evading the responsibility of explaining how public funds are being managed”, Ortom said.
Ortom also pressed Alia to reveal the spending details of the substantial inflows to the state since May 29, 2023.
“Why the secrecy surrounding the state’s finances? And why the desperate attempt to silence anyone who dares to ask these questions?
“Rather than address these legitimate concerns, Governor Alia has chosen the path of diversion, resorting to insults, half-truths, and false claims about Chief Ortom, whose stewardship as governor remains one of selfless service, transparency, good governance, and courage in defending the people of Benue State, particularly in the face of grave security challenges,” the statement added.
Justice Muhammad Nuraddeen Bello of High Court sitting in Sokoto State has sentenced three men, including a foreign national, to death by hanging, after convicting them on charges bordering on terrorism and arms proliferation.
The convicts, Yusuf Muhammad (alias Sallau), a Nigerien; Jabbi Alhaji Yalle; and Kabiru Muhammad, were apprehended on 13th June, 2025, by the Department of State Services (DSS) Counter Terrorism Unit in connection with cross-border criminal activities bordering on arms trafficking and terrorism.
Bello, who found all three defendants guilty as charged and sentenced them to death by hanging, while also ordering the forfeiture of all monetary exhibits recovered from the convicts to the Federal Government, said: “The conviction is the latest in a series of successful prosecutions by the DSS in its sustained operations against terrorism and organised cross-border criminal networks across Nigeria.”
The sentencing is coming about two weeks after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja sentenced each of the five suspects arrested on May 31, 2026, by the DSS for their involvement in the November 21, 2025, attack on St Mary’s Catholic School, Papiri, Niger State, to 25 years’ imprisonment.
Justice Binta Nyako, had handed down the judgment after the men, including two Nigeriens, pleaded guilty to all four terrorism-related charges, bordering on support for the commission of an act of terrorism, breaching both Section 16 of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022, and the Firearms Act, were pressed against them.
According to Count One, the men were accused of jointly conspiring to assist a terrorist by agreeing and intentionally playing various roles towards conveying 15 AK 103 rifles as well as about 1,434 rounds of 7.62mm live ammunition from the Diffa region, Republic of Niger, to one Malam Ahmad, a member of the Boko Haram terrorist group based in Borgu, Niger State, and thereby committed an offence contrary to Section 26(1) of the Terrorism (Prevention and Prohibition) Act, 2022.
Primate Elijah Ayodele, is on the verge of coughing out a whopping N10billion, if he fails to offer unrestrained apology to Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso, former Governor of Kano State within the next 24 hours, and retract his claim that the former Minister of Defence is bidding his time to betray Peter Obi, to whom he is to contest the 2027 presidential election as a running mate.
Without doing so, the controversial cleric, should be ready for a major court battle with the vice-presidential candidate of the Nigeria Democratic Congress (NDC), the platform on which the pair is to contest the election.
In a letter indicating a legal action against Ayodele of the INRI Evangelical Spiritual Church over defamatory remarks, Kwankwaso, through Magaji Mato Ibrahim, SAN & Co., his lawyers demanded an immediate retraction and apology from the cleric over the allegations.
Details of the letter, dated June 11, and unveiled through the X platform of the legal team, was based on a viral video recorded during a live-streamed church service, where the preacher made allegations targeting Kwankwaso’s integrity as Peter Obi’s running mate under the NDC.
Quoting the cleric as stating: “KWANKWASO IS A FAKE TO OBI, KWANKWASO WILL BETRAY YOU. KWANKWASO HAS BEEN PAID TO BE VICE PRESIDENT TO OBI AMONG OTHER LIBELOUS COMMENTS WHILE PRETENDING TO BE A PREACHER,” the former governor said the comments were unprovoked, grossly unfounded, and carefully designed to create a rift within the ranks of the political party and its supporters.
Handing Ayodele a 24-hour ultimatum to publish a full and unequivocal retraction across all social media platforms and news outlets with the same prominence as the original video, they also demanded a written undertaking that he would cease and desist from making any further malicious statements against their client, warning that failure to comply, would lead to full legal actions.
The letter stated: “We shall claim substantial damages to the tune of Ten Billion Naira and cost of the action on a full indemnity basis amongst other reliefs.”
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu on Tuesday demanded the immediate end to the exportation of minerals from countries in Africa in their raw forms, which he said had led to massive exploitation of the continent.
The President, told member countries of the African Minerals Strategy Group (AMSG), a forum of Ministers in charge of Mining and Solid Minerals on the continent to speak with one voice to promote, collective interests, ensure value addition, and prevent the continent from becoming merely a source of raw materials for the rest of the world.
As the Grand Patron of the group, chaired by Dele Alake, Nigeria’s Minister of Solid Minerals Development, gave the charge while receiving a delegation of AMSG in the State House, Tinubu told the delegation that the group had a critical role to play in strengthening Africa’s bargaining power in the global mineral market and ensuring that the continent derives maximum value from its natural resources.
His words: “ What we should do is avoid bureaucracy and deceit; we must put an end to exploitation. The rest of the world won’t mind if your country is a cesspit of dams and rubbish and excavates your raw materials without giving value.
“It is our responsibility to collaborate and cooperate to ensure that these metals and minerals bring value to us, bring technology to us, and we can do it. It is how much each country will put into the research, development and refinery. I don’t see reasons we cannot demand centralisation of that conversation somewhere on the continent. So why not utilise that in our research and development and knowledge-based economy to enhance the quality of life and bring prosperity to our people.”
Emphasising that Africa possessed enormous mineral wealth that should be strategically harnessed to drive industrialisation, create jobs and accelerate economic transformation across the continent, the President, said the era of exporting raw minerals without local processing and beneficiation must give way to a new model that encourages investment in local industries, technology transfer and the development of value chains that retain wealth within Africa.
Alake, who had earlier expressed gratitude to the President for his exemplary leadership under the Renewed Hope Agenda, said the gesture had shown support for Nigeria’s mineral sector, especially in the local value-addition and economic diversification drive, where artisanal miners are empowered.
He told the President: “You encouraged us to look at the focal point of the establishment of this group, which is to ensure that the African natural resources, especially with regards to minerals, critical matters, are localised, the beneficiation coming directly to Africans generally.
“You charged us that we should set our sails very high and ensure that local value addition is a pivot around which all the objectives of this organisation should revolve.
“So, sir, we have gone implemented your charge and we are quitted that today local value addition is reverberating all over Africa.”
He added that some member countries have gone ahead to ban the export of raw minerals.
He explained members of the body were in Abuja for the Fifth edition of the African Natural Resources and Energy Investment Summit (AFNIS 2026), to push for a new continental approach to resource management and industrial development.
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