The Benue Black Cat Heads To Senate Again!

After what must have been a nightmarish experience, Gabriel Suswam, former Governor of Benue State and serving Senator from the State’s Zone A, must be relishing his recent victory at the electoral tribunal over Emmanuel Udende.

It can be recalled that Udende was declared winner of the zone’s Senatorial elections over Suswam earlier this year. Along with the defeat of former Governor Samuel Ortom by a relatively unknown Titus Zam, Udende’s victory was generally considered as one of the miracles of the 2023 elections. Suswam, a level headed politician nicknamed the ‘Black Cat’ for his political sleight if hand and survival instinct, however challenged the result of the elections. He then proceeded to consult widely among his extensive network of political contacts across the state and the nation. Recently, Udende’s victory was overturned and Suswam declared winner of the elections.

… as his former aides continue to die fighting for their legitimate allowances.

Almost ten years after, more than one hundred persons who served under Gabriel Suswam, former Governor of Benue State, are still in court fighting to be paid their statutory claims from the Benue State government. More than twenty have so far died, waiting for the allowances, one right inside Government House Makurdi during Suswam’s administration.

TMI recalls that the former aides, totalling more than four hundred served as Special Assistants and Senior Special Assistants to Suswam between 2011 and 2015, but were unceremoniously disengaged when the former Governor left office, with most of them not paid furniture nor severance allowances. A few of them however managed to use their political connections to get paid by the Suswam administration. Hundreds of others took their case to the Industrial Court.

On assumption of office in 2015, and obviously in recognition of the legitimacy of the former aides’ claims, Governor Samuel Ortom persuaded the former aides to withdraw their case from Court; he even paid a few hundreds of thousands of naira to each of them, with a promise to pay the balance in due course.

With their hopes thus renewed, the former aides withdrew the matter from the Court. Ortom however failed to keep his promise, forcing the former aides to head back to Court.

In a curious judgment however, the Industrial Court last year declared that the former aides’ were not eligible to be paid furniture and severance benefits.

Now, with more than twenty dead due to poverty and assorted illnesses, the aides have resorted to making paltry contributions to raise almost a million naira legal fees required to appeal the ruling of the Industrial Court.

As Suswam heads back to the fat allowances and opulence of his offices in the upper chamber of the Bational Assembly, it remains to be seen how many of his former aides will die fighting for their legitimate entitlements he so heartlessly denied them.

– Sam Adzegeh was a former Senior Special Asst on Speech Writing to ex-governor, Gabriel Suswam

Disclaimer: This article is entirely the opinion of the writer and does not represent the views of The Whistler.