Nigerian Concord Newspaper
Nigerian Concord Newspaper can authoritatively report that the governor of Benue state, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia is working with stakeholders loyal to him to form parallel executive committees for the state chapter of All Progressive Congress from Ward to State levels.
This is unconnected to the unresolvable crisis between the governor, the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume, leadership of Benue APC and the party’s National Assembly Caucus.
This move according to investigation is to pave way for Governor Alia to easily defect to either the People’s Democratic Party or the Labour Party.
Sensing that he will not get a second term ticket from the APC, Governor Alia started approaching some chieftains of the People’s Democratic Party as well the the Labour Party to know which of the party is offering him a return ticket.
“Once we creat factions in the party, the coast will be clear for our governor, his appointees, our own loyal State Assembly and National Assembly members to decamp without anyone calling for their seats to be declared vacant. We are talking to both the PDP and LP and we will weight our options. For now, we will create that division which we need as a constitutional backing to defect without prejudice” one of Alia’s Aides said.
It was further gathered that these parallel executive committees which will be headed at the state level by Comrade Omale Omale, a commissioner in Alia’s administration are the ones that the governor and his administration will recognize instead of the Austin Agada-led executive council.
Meanwhile, the governor’s Chief of Staff, Mr. Paul Biam and Deputy governor Samuel Ode had recently met with some national officers of the APC in Abuja with a proposal from the governor to have the Benue State executive committees of APC at all levels dissolved.
But the move met a brick wall as the national officers immediately rejected the bribe they were offered by the duo and pronounced the loyalty of the National Working Committee of the party to Senator George Akume.