Governor Samuel Ortom:

Richard Elesho

Members of National Union of Benue State a students, NUBESS today protested the non payment of their bursary allowances running to more than N360 Million. The students went round major streets of Makurdi, the state capital before they congregated at the Government House gate, where they blocked the entrance.

The students numbering about 100 carried placards with inscriptions like ‘reminder: our governor pay our bursary allowance, ‘we are running out of patience and capacity’ and others. At the Government House, they defied armed security guards and rebuffed attempts by Acting Secretary to the State Government, Dr Bern Melladu, to address them, insisting on seeing the Governor. They were thereafter asked to go into the Government House where the governor met with them.

In an address to the Governor, National President of NUBESS Emmanuel Iorshe disclosed that the bursary arrears run to several millions and lamented that the governor had refused to clear the backlog as he promised on assumption of office.

Ions he then passionately appealed to the Governor to keep his words and pay the arrears so as to ameliorate the suffering of the students.

Governor Samuel Ortom in his response sympathized with the students and explained why it had been difficult for his administration to meet the competing demands of the state, bursary allowance inclusive. He blamed it on the present economic recession and dwindling revenue to the State.

“Indeed, it has been difficult to run government due to dwindling allocation to the State from the Federation Account since we assumed office, even the Internally Generated Revenue IGR has dropped from N500million monthly to N250million.

The Governor put smiles on the protesters faces however, when he announced the immediate release of N20 million for the payment of the arrears and promised full payment soon as allocation to the state is better.

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