Nigerian Concord Newspaper
There are moments in politics when the conduct of a political office holder becomes more revealing than any speech he could possibly make. The reported spectacle involving the Speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Berger Alfred Emberga, supervising the burning of a campaign shirt bearing the image of Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN is one of such moments. No ordinary political aspirant provokes this kind of reaction from the number three citizen of the state. Only a man the Alia camp has come to fear as a genuine existential threat does.
A campaign material is not a weapon. A photograph is not a threat. A shirt bearing the image of a political aspirant cannot overthrow a government, impeach a governor or defeat an opponent at the ballot box. Yet it was treated as if it could. That reaction is the real story here. It reveals a camp that no longer believes it can win the argument, so it has resorted to destroying the symbol instead. When persuasion is abandoned for intimidation, it is usually because the persuaders have already concluded they are losing.
More troubling is that this incident does not exist in isolation. In January 2026, BusinessDay reported a video in which Berger was allegedly heard saying that if anybody came to speak against Governor Hyacinth Alia, even in a church, the meeting should be disrupted. In February, Channels Television reported the account of its Benue correspondent, who alleged that the Speaker confronted him over his coverage of a parallel APC congress and warned him, “I will deal with you.” Read together with the shirt burning, a pattern emerges of an administration rattled by anything associated with Aondoakaa’s name, whether it is a journalist’s microphone, a rival congress or a piece of cloth.
The office of Speaker should represent the dignity of parliamentary democracy, the protection of debate and the institutional separation of powers. Instead, under Berger, it has become a barometer of how much the Alia camp fears Aondoakaa’s rise. A confident political machine ignores a campaign shirt. A frightened one burns it in public and makes sure everyone sees.
The contrast with previous Speakers only sharpens the point. Under Rt. Hon. Terkimbi Ikyange, the Benue House of Assembly passed the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Bill in 2017, legislation that became one of the most consequential laws in the state’s recent political history. Contemporary reports specifically identified Ikyange as Speaker when the Assembly passed the bill, which was subsequently assented to by Governor Samuel Ortom. Under Rt. Hon. Aondona Dajoh, the Assembly processed the legislation establishing the University of Agriculture, Science and Technology, Ihugh. The bill passed first reading during his speakership and was subsequently enacted. Those Speakers left behind institutions. Berger appears set to leave behind the image of a shirt in flames, a fitting monument to a leadership that has run out of arguments against Aondoakaa and turned to spectacle instead.
There is something particularly telling about a sitting Speaker becoming publicly associated with the destruction of a political opponent’s campaign material. The shirt itself means nothing. What it exposes is everything. It exposes a governing camp that watches Aondoakaa’s growing support with open anxiety, that cannot counter his record on contracts, accountability and public finance, and that has concluded its safest option is to attack his image rather than his ideas.
This is why the reported incident should not be dismissed as a trivial political drama. It is a confession, delivered in smoke, that Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN has become the single figure the Alia camp most dreads facing in 2027. Benue does not need leaders who believe political opposition must be silenced, disrupted or physically intimidated. It needs leaders who can stand before their opponents, defend their records and present their programmes. The fact that Berger’s camp cannot do that where Aondoakaa is concerned says more about their prospects than any campaign shirt ever could.
The difference between a political leader and an accidental occupant of political office is ultimately demonstrated by what the office produces. One leaves behind laws, institutions and ideas. The other leaves behind photographs of a burning shirt and a trail of intimidation. For Berger Alfred, the question is no longer whether he can command men to destroy a campaign shirt. The question is why the mere image of Aondoakaa has become something his camp feels it must destroy at all.
If the burning of Aondoakaa’s image was meant to project strength, it has instead confirmed the opposite. It has confirmed that Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN is no longer a distant possibility to the Alia camp. He is the nightmare they did not expect to arrive this early, and they are already showing it.