By Emma Amaize
VALUE Trust Investment Limited, a company owned by Senior Special Assistant to the President on Public Affairs, Dr. Doyin Okupe, has dragged the Benue State Government to a High Court sitting in Makurdi, Benue State, claiming the sum of N358.7 million for work completed by the firm, but not paid for by the government.

Tongues have been wagging in the last few weeks over the contractual controversy between Okupe and the state government.

Counsel to the company, Festus Keyamo Esq. in a statement, yesterday, said, “The company in question, Value Trust Investment Ltd, has briefed us to represent it in respect of the contractual dispute”, adding,  “After painstakingly perusing the documents at our disposal,  we have come to the following irresistible conclusions, shorn of politics and its brickbats:”

“There was no time Dr. Doyin Okupe or any of his companies took money from the Benue State Government and “vanished into thin air” as has been portrayed in many quarters. The clear evidence of this is that, by a letter dated 23 January 2007, the Benue State Government itself wrote and acknowledged that forty percent (40%) of the work had been executed as at that date by Value Trust Investment Ltd.

“It was the Benue State Government itself that breached some parts of the contract by not fulfilling its own contractual obligations, which led to delay in performing some parts of the contract. (Fuller particulars of these breaches can be gleaned from our statement of claims”, he asserted. .

According to him, “As it stands today, on a pro rata basis, our client has performed  far in excess of the money it received to execute the contract. The evidence of this is certificate number 4, which was submitted by our client to the Benue State Government and in respect of which the Benue State Government has done nothing”.

“Therefore, the money owed our client by the Benue State Government, as at today for work completed and not paid for, is the sum of N358,762,934.90 (Three Hundred and Fifty Eight Million, Seven Hundred and Sixty Two Thousand, Nine Hundred and Thirty Four Naira, Ninety Kobo)”, he stated

His words, “Consequently, we have proceeded to court against the Benue State Government for recovery of the said sum, damages for breach of contract, among other sundry claims. We have taken time to attach the statement of claims to this press release together with relevant documents for the public to judge themselves, away from the politics surrounding the matter”.

“In view of the foregoing, and having brought the bare facts to the attention of everyone, we have been instructed to, without hesitation, drag anybody to court for defamation of character, who continues to make disparaging comments about our client that are not in tandem with the facts and documents concerning this matter”, he said.