A former Governor of Benue State, Samuel Ortom, has explained on live television how he came to own 23 vehicles seized from him after leaving office, after anchors pressed him on whether the cars were bought with his own money and whether he had receipts for them.
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Ortom made the disclosure during a television morning programme in which he also accused the incumbent Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, of running the state without regard for the rule of law, and confirmed that he is backing President Bola Tinubu for re-election in 2027.
The exchange began when an anchor asked him to restate the number of vehicles involved.
“How many cars did you say they took from you again?” the anchor asked.
“Twenty-three used cars,” Ortom replied. “These were my vehicles.”
A second anchor pressed further. “Do you have the receipts of those cars? Did you buy the cars with your own money? Was it your own car that they took from you?”
Ortom asked to be allowed to complete his response.
“Listen to me now. Please listen to me. You have asked me a question. Allow me to answer,” he said.
He then set out the basis of the ownership.
“It is a tradition that when you are appointed in office or elected, and when you are leaving, you leave with those vehicles, and this was legitimately done in the State Executive Council,” he said. “It’s not just me, my deputy, my commissioners, my advisers, my principal special assistants, all of them.”
According to the former governor, the State Executive Council, which he described as the highest decision-making body, allocated the vehicles to the outgoing officials on payment of a token because they had been in use for more than four years.
“By government rules, when vehicles are used for four years they become more of scrapped and they are given out. So we did that,” he said, adding that the vehicles had been allocated to him, his wife and those immediately around him.
Ortom said the seizure was carried out without notice.
“Vehicles that were given to me legitimately by government, this government went and seized them in a manner that was not befitting. No communication to me was done,” he said.
He said he responded by going to court. “It was on this basis that, as a law-abiding citizen, I went to court and I won.”
The court, he said, ordered the return of the 23 vehicles and the payment of ₦5 million to him, a figure well below what his lawyers had sought.
“The sum of ₦5 million, despite the fact that our lawyers were asking for ₦500 million, but they gave us ₦5 million and we accepted it,” he said.
Asked directly whether the vehicles had been returned since the judgment, Ortom said they had not.
“As I talk to you, that is what I’m saying. Our governor does not believe in the rule of law and due process. Up to today, it is about a year now,” he said. “Those vehicles have not been given to me. He has not even appealed, and those vehicles have not been given to me.”
He argued that the position was inconsistent with the governor’s own history in court. “No respect for rule of law. He doesn’t respect judgment, and he himself is a beneficiary of this. I knew what went on. He would have been thrown out. The Supreme Court gave him the mandate and we accepted it. But why is he not ready to respect the rule of law?”
Asked what he meant by saying the governor would have been thrown out, Ortom said the matter was in the public domain.
“We went to court. We challenged his election. One of the issues was that there is no way a candidate can be ready for election when your name was not submitted within 180 days. This was before the amended Electoral Act, and his name was submitted 43 days, and we said no,” he said.
Pressed on whether he was saying the Supreme Court had erred, he declined to go that far.
“That is not what I’m saying,” he said. “Whatever they say, even the case of Imo comes to focus. But once a decision is taken by the Supreme Court, that is final. You can’t go anywhere else.”
The vehicles formed part of a broader complaint about the current administration.
“We’re yet to get it right in Benue State as far as some of us are concerned,” Ortom said. “Democracy is anchored on the rule of law, and that is what guides what democracy is. What we are witnessing in the last three years and some months is that here is a government that does not believe in the rule of law, but believes in witch-hunting, believes in running opponents down.”
He said no cross-party stakeholders’ meeting had been convened since the administration took office, and alleged that when he went to inform his kinsmen of his wife’s Senate ambition, the governor directed that no chief should receive him or speak with him.
On local government autonomy, he said: “The local government autonomy that we were told has been granted, there is nothing like that in Benue State,” adding that the 22 local governments had been left without impact and that chairmen had rendered no public account.
He also recalled a directive he said President Tinubu gave after the Yelwata killings, that the governor should convene former governors, the surviving military governor, traditional rulers and other stakeholders and bring them to Abuja to seek a lasting solution. “As I talk to you today, our governor has refused to summon that meeting,” he said.
Asked whether he had attempted to meet the governor, Ortom said he had met him once, before the swearing-in, to hand over his notes.
He said he told the incoming governor: “Power belongs to God and he giveth it to whomsoever he wishes. I didn’t want you to be governor, but you are governor today. If you have issues with my handing-over notes, ask me. If you want anything from me to contribute so that together we can build a state that everybody will be proud of, we’ll be there.”
Since that meeting, he said, there has been no contact. “The man has not picked my call. My governor has not picked my call. I’ve called him several times.”
Asked whether he was aligned with the FCT Minister, Nyesom Wike, on the National Rainbow Coalition, Ortom described Wike as a friend with whom he reasons, works and sometimes disagrees.
He recalled a statement he made at Wike’s ministerial reception in 2023. “I have no regret making that statement, that in 2027 some of us will support Tinubu to win. In 2023, I supported Obi. But when Nigerians spoke and President Tinubu was president, I said, look, if you can’t beat them, you join them.”
Asked to name his candidates, he said: “At state level, I am backing Aondoakaa for governor. I’m backing all my candidates, Senate, House of Reps and House of Assembly. And I’m also backing President Bola Tinubu for president.”
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