It is over three months that the Benue State Governor Hyacinth Alia took over mantle of leadership as Governor of the state.
Since his inauguration, his administration has witnessed some political drama, party infighting, with good sideline stories, one of which caught news flow attention to spotlight.
In a lick Audio, a man called Moses Ternenge spoke on how he and others helped Alia to win the governorship election and threatened to expose the method if he, Ternenge, is being pushed away.
Do they know how we made him the governor? He questioned in the leaked audio.
He claimed that the paramount leader of the Tiv nation has called him for favours and he has obliged him.
Listen to him: “When traditional rulers from Jechira were locked up, it was Tor Tiv who called me to go and bail them, Tor Jechira called me to appreciate me. I’ve been helping Jechira long before today.
“This foolish boy which we made him speaker, has carried offices and given to people who are against Alia. We gave him Speaker so that he’d be sitting with us and taking decisions, he took “appropriation committee” and gave to Becky. Do you want to put the governor in the spotlight?
“Anybody who tries to hurt me, my God deals with them because I don’t commit evil. They’ve said many things about me, that this guy is blocking people from seeing the governor, this guy doesn’t want people to see Alia.
“This house, I have the money to build it to the end in a single day. I didn’t come here to make money, I came here to help Alia fix Benue, that was the agreement when we made him governor. Now they are saying I wasn’t part of the campaign.
“This thing pains me a lot. You see that immediately I got here, the governor started asking me about court cases, why didn’t he ask those who are talking.
“This governor’s seat, we’ll also occupy it in the future, of course we will.
“They’ve just given someone the governorship and then a group of people have started shouting, Kunav, Kunav, and I ask, Kunav for what? The governorship is beyond Kunav. We have 23 local governments, the Idoma people are coming for us, they’ll soon see our nakedness. Do they even know the prominent Idoma people that come to us for assistance?
“I can’t tolerate this again; I can’t tolerate this nonsense. We have been patient about some of these things, not because we don’t know how to talk, we know how to talk. It’s the capacity we have that has brought us here. And we are here so that Kunav shouldn’t be disgraced, but simply because we don’t want Kunav to be disgraced, they now look at you as evil.
“A Kunav man once spoke with me and asked why is it that now a Kunav man has become governor, I left Abuja back to Makurdi. I told him that as we are speaking, I can command a truck of soldiers and police of up to hundred, so don’t make it a point to disrespect me.
“This is not politics, no, it is not politics, this is beyond politics. This is not how politics is played. Politics is meant to build not to destroy. People insult the governor online, why are the Kunav people not attacking those kinds of people instead of attacking those of us who are helping the governor. We are not fools!
“God has uplifted me in such a way not to fear any evil man. I don’t align with evil people. Even Alia, it’s because he is a priest, else I had refused that I will not deal with politicians. But when he came as a priest, we thought, we’d rally round him to help him succeed.
“Do they know how we made him the governor? Or do they want us to dry dirty linen in the public? Instead of Kunav to concentrate and plead with Uba to go and halt the court case, they are misbehaving.
“Did we help you to become governor so that little children will be insulting us? Very little children for that matter. No matter how bad it is, I cannot come and sell myself low like this in Benue. You don’t talk until, they push us to talk, and then they say that guy is disrespectful. I didn’t come to Benue for anyone to call me disrespectful.
“The governor knows me, he knows me. Do you know the evil that is been hatched against us in this house? This thing we are saying is not a secret. We came here with good intentions. You know my capacity, we came here with the intention to help. But this is becoming too much so we’ll have to talk now. They even arranged for people to assassinate us.
“There are people pleading with us to work against the governor but we declined that we are going to work with the governor and we are not going to turn back.
“You know that for the two weeks that I was away, if I was here, even if those people were persuaded to give a judgement against us they would have refused, you know. How would they have done that? Go up to supreme court, there’s no one that will win a court case against the governor. Do they know they people we sit with in Abuja to drink tea?
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“I’ve been sitting with the Chief Judge of Nigeria, taking tea with him, even playing with him, is it a court case that I can’t handle. A local case for that matter. The Chief Judge is under me.
“The foolish man who gave an order against us is under us. I told that foolish man to go and ask the President of Industrial Court, I was the one who settled his case in Rivers State. Justice Pam had given a judgement against them, I was the person who refused that they should be allowed to go ahead with elections.The whole union was against the man, they were about to sack his boss.
“The man was shocked and trembling when I told him and asked that was I one who did that, I said yes, I am the one, call your president and ask him. He shook and said he even cancel the case against local government chairmen but Kunav annoyed me and I went back to Abuja, that’s when they got a chance to do all these.
“I was ready to call the president to remind him that I had helped him so if he misbehaves here in Benue, I’ll dig up the past about the union.
“I don’t see any governor in Benue who will intimidate me, none, because I have the capacity and it is God that gave me that. Why will you intimidate me? If you want to intimidate me because you are the governor, I’ll descend on you. Nobody will intimidate me. But if you need respect, we’d deal with respect. It is God that has given me this capacity my brother, it’s not as if I have a godfather.
“When Dajoh was given the Speaker, I had said on national TV where Zam and Tarzoor were all present that they should go and ask Akume, he is my friend, I am not his boy. He knows me very well.”
