Benue State governor Gabriel Suswam
yesterday explained reasons behind his unflinching support for President
Goodluck Jonathan, saying his motive is to attract federal projects to the
agrarian state.
There have been serious agitations from people of the state that the governor is globetrotting and that his closeness to the president has not positively affected the deplorable condition of the farming state.
But Suswam who spoke on a live phone-in programme on Radio Nigeria Harvest 103.5 FM, Makurdi on Monday, dispelled the allegations and stated that his closeness to Jonathan should not be misunderstood by the people for pursuit of his personal aggrandizement, but a pavement to foster a cordial working relationship that will attract developmental projects to the state.
Suswam said that he had requested the assistance of the federal government on some very key projects such as the construction of a bridge across the River Buruku to ease transportation of the people among others which, according to him, had not yet been implemented.
“Yes, I agree that I have access to the president and people know me as somebody who put a lot of pressure to get results, but then Benue is not the only state and I am not the only governor that has access to the president; it is simply to get things done as part of democracy dividends to the people,” he said.
Suswam pointed out some of the federal government projects facilitated in the state including the gigantic N17 billion dam in Otukpo and construction of some of the roads in many parts of the state.
“The road from Vandeikya to Obudu in Cross-River State is also ongoing and it is a federal government project; the Makurdi-Gboko road is equally going on and contractors are on site, there are other projects that the state government has forwarded to the federal government for necessary action and we hope something will be done,” he stated.
Commenting on the indefinite strike embarked by primary school teachers which state government has seem insensitive, Suswam maintained that the state has no available resources to implement the minimum wage and other requests which the teachers are demanding. He said unless salaries of civil servants and political appointees are slide downwards.
“The minimum teachers are asking me to pay is N1.8 billion and if you put that together with salaries of local government staff you have over N4 billion, so where will I get N4 billion every month to pay the salaries of local government and teachers? It’s not that I am collecting huge amount of money and telling people stories. And so there is no way that I can pay that money, the money is simply not available”.
There have been serious agitations from people of the state that the governor is globetrotting and that his closeness to the president has not positively affected the deplorable condition of the farming state.
But Suswam who spoke on a live phone-in programme on Radio Nigeria Harvest 103.5 FM, Makurdi on Monday, dispelled the allegations and stated that his closeness to Jonathan should not be misunderstood by the people for pursuit of his personal aggrandizement, but a pavement to foster a cordial working relationship that will attract developmental projects to the state.
Suswam said that he had requested the assistance of the federal government on some very key projects such as the construction of a bridge across the River Buruku to ease transportation of the people among others which, according to him, had not yet been implemented.
“Yes, I agree that I have access to the president and people know me as somebody who put a lot of pressure to get results, but then Benue is not the only state and I am not the only governor that has access to the president; it is simply to get things done as part of democracy dividends to the people,” he said.
Suswam pointed out some of the federal government projects facilitated in the state including the gigantic N17 billion dam in Otukpo and construction of some of the roads in many parts of the state.
“The road from Vandeikya to Obudu in Cross-River State is also ongoing and it is a federal government project; the Makurdi-Gboko road is equally going on and contractors are on site, there are other projects that the state government has forwarded to the federal government for necessary action and we hope something will be done,” he stated.
Commenting on the indefinite strike embarked by primary school teachers which state government has seem insensitive, Suswam maintained that the state has no available resources to implement the minimum wage and other requests which the teachers are demanding. He said unless salaries of civil servants and political appointees are slide downwards.
“The minimum teachers are asking me to pay is N1.8 billion and if you put that together with salaries of local government staff you have over N4 billion, so where will I get N4 billion every month to pay the salaries of local government and teachers? It’s not that I am collecting huge amount of money and telling people stories. And so there is no way that I can pay that money, the money is simply not available”.
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