Former Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom has rejected the findings of the Benue State Income and Expenditure Commission of Inquiry as a politically motivated exercise designed from the outset to indict his administration regardless of the evidence, saying the report was fundamentally flawed, legally challenged, and represented the culmination of a sustained campaign of political persecution by the Hyacinth Alia administration.
The eight-member panel chaired by retired Justice Jubril Idrisu, which was inaugurated in June 2025 to investigate the finances of the Ortom administration and the 23 local government councils between May 2015 and May 2023, presented its findings showing that the state generated over N826.5 billion during the period while expenditure stood at approximately N683.4 billion, leaving what it described as an unaccounted balance of approximately N139.8 billion.
Ortom, through his media aide, said the legitimacy of the inquiry remained the subject of ongoing litigation, noting that earlier panels established by the Alia administration to investigate his government had been challenged in court and dissolved before a new commission was constituted, and that there was a pending appeal challenging the legality of the current exercise with a hearing scheduled at the Court of Appeal on June 29, 2026. He said receiving a commission report while a court challenge to its legitimacy was still pending amounted to contempt for due process.
Deputy Governor Sam Ode, receiving the report on behalf of Governor Alia, said the administration remained committed to transparency, accountability, and institutional reforms, and expressed confidence that implementing the commission’s recommendations would strengthen governance and discourage the mismanagement of public resources.
