Nigerian Concord Newspaper
Last week at his 50th Birthday celebration, a former Speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Hyacinth Dajoh accused the governor of the State, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia of involving himself in a whooping N68B contract scandal.
This was just one of the numerous allegations of fraud and corruption which Dajoh made against Governor Hyacinth Alia while addressing Benue political stakeholders on the occasion of his Birthday Celebration.
Governor Hyacinth Alia has however denied the allegations through a press statement signed by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Kula Tersoo, noting that the former speaker has to prove his allegations against the governor.
But reacting today, a leader of the People’s Democratic Party in Benue state, Mr. Bemgba Iortyom said that the the Executive in Benue State under Governor Hyacinth Alia had accepted and bound itself ab initio under the RULE OF LAW and DUE PROCESS by subjecting the Air Force Base Road project under the budgetary regime of the state, whereby it was captured in the Appropriation Law passed by the State Legislature for the fiscal year in view, and the cost allotted to it under law was N28 billion.
He added that by the same token of acceptance to be bound by the rule of law and due process, the Executive could not turn around and indulge in arbitrariness, anarchy and impunity, by jacking up the project cost to N68 billion, without recourse to Legislative vetting.
In his media note, he opined that the Executive was bound to follow through by consistently building the project on the foundation laid for it under the powers and oversight authority of the Legislature.
He noted that a deviation from that foundation meant that the project was no longer being built on a lawful foundation, and since in the eye of the law, you cannot build something on nothing, whatever Alia is doing regarding that project, from the point of departure from the laid down procedure of due process, is fraudulent, and amounts to a FINANCIAL CRIME which he will answer for sooner or later.