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Hyacinth Alia and Samuel Ortom
The Benue State government has said it is still suffering from the consent judgments, running into at least N3.6bn, entered into by the immediate-past government led by Samuel Ortom.
The Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Public Order, Fidelis Mnyim, stated this in a telephone chat with journalists on Monday.
He lamented that the present administration was still having its account garnished due to a consent judgment entered into by the immediate-past administration.
He said a court sitting in Abuja, on Monday, unfreezed N1.9bn from garnished orders two weeks ago.
He lamented that some of the consent judgments were entered into in the twilight of Ortom’s government, lamenting that the administration agreed it would pay a certain amount of money to the claimants monthly and defaulted all before Governor Hyacinth Alia took over.
“I just finished with one of the inherited garnishee cases in Abuja. After my submission, the court has set it aside. The Benue State government account has been released from that N1.9bn debt.
“Other ones are still in court and we have filed our processes and are arguing. I am very sure that, by the grace of God, we are going to set all of them aside.
“It’s been like this since the beginning of Alia’s administration. Just last week, we had a coincidence of several garnishees on the state government accounts.
“In the last two weeks, we have the one of N1.9bn at Abuja and the one of N800m from the LG which emanated from Vandeikya Local Government Area,” he said.
The commissioner said going by the Nigerian constitution and the recent ruling of the Supreme Court on the financial independence of local government, the state government had nothing to do with local government funds and on no account should funds meant for the state government be garnished at the instance of the local government.
He said another garnishee case of N900m would be heard in Jos, Plateau State, regarding one of the local government areas.
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