Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom
Ortom drags Akume to court for libel, general damages, claims N60bn
Face-off between Benue Governor, Samuel Ortom, and the Presidency exacerbated, Friday, as the former dragged his predecessor, and current Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, George Akume before the Federal High Court in Makurdi, in the state capital, in a N60 billion suit.
Ortom is suing Akume for N50 billion in general damages and another N10 billion said to be for exemplary and aggravated damages over alleged libel.
The Benue Governor who filed the suit and was assigned; No. MHC/268/2021, is praying the court to award the sum of N50 billion.
Akume had reportedly convened a press briefing where he had accused Ortom of incompetence and ineptitude, disrespect for President Muhammadu Buhari and massive corruption. This is also as the minister called for a state of emergency to be declared in Benue State over rising insecurity.
Dragging the minister before the Makurdi High Court, the governor claimed that the comments credited to his predecessor were allegedly defamatory, just as he further sought a perpetual injunction ‘restraining Akume (the defendant) by himself or through any agent, servants or privies from similar or further publication of any defamatory statement against him.’
Akume was Governor of Benue State from 1999 to 2007and was the first Governor of the state to have completed two terms in office.
He was elected governor of Benue State on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was then elected to the Senate.
Akume was re-elected Senator for Benue North-West in the April 2011 elections, running on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), he won another term in 2015 but lost to Senator Orke Jev of the PDP in 2019.
On defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC), President Buhari nominated Akume to serve as a minister in 2019.
Ortom has come under heavy verbal fire with the Presidency since his controversial interview on Channels Television programme, penultimate Tuesday, where he openly accused Buhari of attempting to ‘Fulanise’ the entire country using the open grazing of cattle agenda, re-establishment of cattle routes, just as he further blamed the President for selective justice in prosecuting killers herdsmen wreaking havoc across the country.
