By Charles Adingupu
All is not well in Benue State as Governor Hyacinth Alia of the All Progressives Congress (APC) is set on a collision course with the 23 local government chairmen elected in March 2022 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
A report at the weekend said the local government chairmen have vowed not to obey Governor Alia’s directive to handover and proceed on suspension as recommended by the state House of Assembly.
While addressing journalists on Saturday over the assembly’s resolution and the directive by the Permanent Secretary, Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to suspend them on the orders of the governor.
The chairmen said they had briefed their lawyers to file a contempt suit against the state government for failing to respect an earlier injunction restraining it from sacking them from office.
Reacting to this position, the governor through his Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula, said it was not a sack order but a suspension.
He added that it would allow for thorough investigations into the income and expenditure of the councils which already showed traces of misappropriation based on audit reports received so far.
The 23 local government chairmen elected on the platform of the opposition PDP met with the governor on June 20 to turn in their reports of income and expenditure.
After the meeting, which many of the chairmen feared would be their last, Alia surprisingly said dissolving them was not on his mind.
