Nigerian Concord Newspaper
The entire Benue state has been thrown into chaos over the supremacy battle between the governor of the state, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume.
Nigerian Concord Newspaper can authoritatively report that what initially looked like an internal crisis between the duo of Alia and Akume has now turned to an exchange of words, street protests and counter protests by supporters and loyalists of the two leaders of the Benue state chapter of All Progressive Congress.
This is just as the Benue state chapter of the People’s Democratic Party has advised the governor to be transparent in running the affairs of the state.
The party through its State Publicity Secretary, Chief Bemgba Iortyom called on Governor Alia to make the financial records of his administration open to the public.
As the battle between Alia and Akume gets tougher, there were reports that the governor was making plans to dump the APC for the Peoples Democratic Party. The governor’s media handlers had denied the report though.
While some attributed the crisis between Alia and Akume to leadership tussle in the Benue APC, investigation had shown that the main cause of the crisis was the governor’s refusal to pay the sum of N1b and N200m monthly to the SGF and his wife, Rt. Hon. Regina Akume who is a serving member of the House of Representatives.
Also, Akume’s publicists had accused the governor of being ungrateful to his political godfather because of his refusal to allow the SGF to appoint his own men into BIRS, TSB, SUBEB, Exams Board, Bureau for Local Government as well as some juicy ministries like Finance, Works and two others.
As a result of the crisis between Alia and Akume, loyalists of the governor have started accusing the SGF of plotting to mobilize state lawmakers to impeach him or possibly make him lose his election case at the Supreme Court.
Just yesterday, the National Assembly Caucus of the Benue state APC led by Senator Titus Zam who represents Benue Northwest held a press conference where they accused the governor of operating a one man administration in the state.
They complained that the governor does not carried them along in how he administers the state. They added that all his appointments including the Constitution of the local government caretaker committee didn’t get an endorsement from the party.
Reacting to the Press conference on his Facebook page, a member of Senator George Akume political family, Dr. Mkor Aondona described the outing which the public believes was sponsored by the SGF as immature and shameful.
Responding, one of the media Aides to the governor, Kula Tersoo described the press conference as a show of shame and a display of “contemptible cowardice”
He noted that members of the Benue APC National Assembly Caucus must have sold their conscience and allowed what is remaining of the same to completely blindfold their touch with reality in Benue State.
He said: “It is quite ironic that Sen. Titus Zam, who could not win elections in his ward and Local Government, but only got saved by the popularity of the “Yes Father” movement in the two major towns of (Makurdi and Gboko) for the Benue North West Senatorial District election, led this infamous group not to discuss issues that will bring more development to the state, but to descend on the Governor by consistently referring to him during the press conference in a demeaning manner. It is even more laughable when Zam and his co-travellers insinuated that Rev.Fr. Alia came into “a stronger” APC for the election.
“But suffice to ask, when the Saint, who is also a Maitama drummer and orchestrator of the macabre music and his cohorts had pompously danced and campaigned for the same party in 2019, what was the outcome? Have they forgotten that the party barely managed to get one National Assembly seat out of 14? The party also got less than four out of 30 members in the Benue State House of Assembly”