Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State in this interview gave explanations as to why his administration was finding it extremely difficult to pay salaries, the challenge of ghost workers and salary padding as well as moves he was making to address the problem. Workers in Benue state are not happy over the inability of the state government to pay them backlog of unpaid salaries and have therefore embarked on an indefinite strike. Why did the government allow the issue degenerates to this level? I know that they are not happy and I am equally very sad. I am not happy too, just like the people because as a leader, it is when the people are happy that I will be motivated to be happy. It is unfortunate that I have found myself where I am today. But as a child of God and someone who has faith in God, I believe that this too I will overcome. This is not the first time I am facing challenges in my life. I have passed through several challenges in life. In my academic pursuit, in my working life, in my business life, in my political life and in my family life but at the end God has always helped me and I believe that this will not be an exception. King David says ‘I will look up unto the hills from whence cometh my help,’ my help will come from God Almighty. And I trust and believe that we will be out of this. But let me say that, it is unfortunate that we have found ourselves where we are today due to the numerous challenges which is not limited to Benue State but the entire country. Nigeria went through a recession and just came out of it, though it is still very fragile but we are trusting and believing God that things will work and the economy will blossom and grow and things will be better. We took over power at a time that the main source of revenue to the states went down as a result of the drastic fall in oil prices. Oil that sold for about $140 a barrel went for as low as below $30. Today we have made progress because the last time I checked it was going for about $56 per barrel and I think that we are making progress. And that has also shown the difference in the Federation Account. The accrual that came in was a little bit better than what we used to have in the past. So, we are trusting that things will pick up and we will be able to discharge our responsibilities very well as a government. Let me also say that I inherited N69billion arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuity. It was a very big problem but government is a continuum and we had to work with it. And the wage bill then, was around N8.2billion without teachers’ minimum wage. When we came we said teachers should ideally be treated better than any other worker because of the strategic roles they play in the society, especially in the area of moulding the character of our children. And
