By Thaddeus Sambe
In the build-up to the 2023 general elections, the people of Benue State witnessed a strange union and unholy romance between the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Reverend Hyacinth Alia, and the then governor of Kaduna State, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
This union became public shortly after Hyacinth Alia emerged as the APC candidate for the 2023 governorship election.
In July of the same year, photos of Fr Alia and El-Rufai graced the social media. A picture of the duo was released after one of their closed-door meetings in Kaduna.
Many questioned what a priest was doing with a religious bigot and an extremist, a divisive figure, a man who made a mockery of Jesus Christ on his Twitter handle, and worse of it all, a security threat who was repeatedly fingered as one of those sponsoring armed Fulani militias to unleash terror or Christian communities. Benue people saw the relationship as unequal yoking.
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Some thought that, since Alia was a novice in politics, he was probably building political alliances and synergy with party members within the northern region. However, facts later emerged that the relationship was not about the unity of the party, but the agenda of one man, Mallam Nasir El-Rufai.
In December 2022, Alia traveled again to Kaduna State, and this time, it was alleged that he held a meeting not just with El-Rufai but groups like Miyetti Allah, brokered by Nasir El-Rufai.
A pressure group in Benue State, the Benue Coalition for Democracy(BCD), under the leadership of Comrade Ternenge Bendega, in a press statement urged Alia to withdraw from the race since it was becoming clear that El-Rufai and leaders of Miyetti Allah organization were the ones funding his campaign and would manipulate his administration.
The Benue pressure group insisted that Alia was not fit to be governor, having collected over N5 billion from enemies of the state for his campaign.
BCD in the statement condemned Alia for being too desperate to be governor of Benue state at the peril of innocent people and farmers of the state.
In a move that worsened the fears of many observers, Alia started telling the people of Benue State that he was going to reconcile them with the Fulani herdsmen so that they could co-exist together with the herders. This campaign message didn’t go down well with some Benue people, and anytime he was asked questions bordering on security, he shied away and told the people that, security matters and strategy were not issues to be disclosed in public.
With the deal sealed between Alia and the Fulani groups led by El-Rufai, the former governor of Kaduna State was in Makurdi, two days before the governorship election with more financial support to see how things were going as regards the governorship election.
IMPLEMENTATION OF THE AGREEMENT
Shortly after Alia assumed office as governor, herdsmen started returning to the state in what appeared to be fulfillment of the deal with El-Rufai and others. The enforcement of the Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of Benue State was relaxed without an official pronouncement and cows were grazing everywhere. They are still grazing in Benue State today, thereby causing renewed insecurity in the state.
Recently, Governor Hyacinth Alia attempted to repeal the law prohibiting open grazing in Benue State by conducting a public hearing in the three senatorial districts of Benue State. The people on seeing the proposed amendment openly condemned repealing of the law.
THE PLOT TO DECAMP TO SDP AHEAD OF 2027
Shortly after El-Rufai fell out with the administration of His Excellency, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, which was occasioned by the failure of the former FCT Minister to scale through his ministerial screening, governor Alia and the former governor of Kaduna State began to look for an alternative platform. It is understood that El-Rufai has been nursing the ambition to be President even when the existing political arrangement has shifted power to the South after Muhammadu Buhari completed the tenure of the north.
Alia who also has deliberately fallen out with the main APC in Benue State was left with no other option than to reunite with a former chieftain of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Senator Barnabas Gemade, a man who has been funding the SDP in Benue State since 2018. Senator Gemade was also one of the three governorship aspirants on the platform of the APC that challenged Governor Alia’s nomination as APC gubernatorial candidate in Benue State to the Supreme Court. Gemade challenged the nomination of Alia and sought the outright cancellation of the primary election that gave the suspended priest the party’s ticket, a move that would have left the APC without a governorship candidate in the state for the 2023 election.
This development has shown that APC was originally not Gov Alia’s option but since the opportunity was given to him on a platter of gold by Senator George Akume, the present Secretary to the Government of the Federation, he took advantage of it and having achieved his aim, he has decided that he will destroy the platform that couldn’t detect his hidden motive.
Surprisingly, it is Gemade who was Alia’s top political enemy that has suddenly become his political godfather. Meanwhile, members of all the political camps in Benue knew that Senator Akume was the one who single-handledly birthed the idea of the direct primaries that produced Alia, without which he could not have come close to the ticket in the indirect primaries. Akume also fought legal battles from the lower courts to the Supreme Court to ensure that Alia’s ticket was not destroyed.
However, shortly after Alia was sworn in, he turned his heel against Akume to the utmost shock of everyone in all the parties. Gov Alia has shown that he is not someone to be trusted at all despite being a Catholic priest who is expected to represent trust and gratitude.
Alia buried his differences with Gemade and both got reunited. Gov Alia’s hatchet men have been deriding the person of Senator Akume, the SGF, who has funded and nurtured the APC to the current strength it possesses in Benue State by emerging victorious both at the state and federal elections in 2015 and 2023.
However, as political events are developing in Benue and at the national level, it has been observed that the union between Gov Alia and El-Rufai is being reinforced. This subtle reunion was observed through the instrumentality of one Dr. Francis Terna, a former appointee of El-Rufai, whom Gov Alia appointed to head a new educational agency that the Gov Alia created without the backing of the law. Recently, a public lecture in honour of Governor Alia was organized in Makurdi by Terna Francis and El Rufai was the chief host at the occasion. He couldn’t attend in person but was represented by his son Mohammed Bello El-Rufai. All these are ways of deepening the bond between Governor Alia and El-Rufai as we march towards 2027.
A few months after the reunion between Governor Alia and Senator Gemade, the former governor of Kaduna State visited the National Secretariat of the SDP in Abuja, where he met with the National Chairman of the party, Alhaji Shehu Musa Gabam.
There was, however, a mild drama at the end of the meeting shortly after a photo session when someone was heard cautioning those taking photographs against leaking the photo of the visit on social media, but El-Rufa’i quickly responded, saying ‘I don’t care’.
Since the visit of El-Rufai to the National Secretariat of the SDP, the crisis rocking the APC in Benue State has taken a more dangerous dimension, with no hope in sight for peace.
After its 146th meeting of the National Working Committee, the APC ordered aggrieved party members and proxies in Benue State who have individually gone to court over the leadership crisis in the state to withdraw their cases or risk facing disciplinary action. While Comrade Austin Agada, the authentic State Chairman of the party in Benue State who is loyal to the party withdrew his case against the suspended Welfare Secretary of the party in Benue State, Benjamin Omakolo, who has been parading as State Acting Chairman, the Benue APC faction loyal to Governor Alia refused to withdraw its plethora of cases against the party.
Alia and his men boasted that they wouldn’t withdraw their cases and nothing was going to happen to them.
Many analysts in Benue State believe that the APC faction loyal to Governor Alia is doing everything possible to ensure that the crisis escalates beyond the level it is now, so that the party will not win any election in 2027.
The purpose of all these unhealthy developments is to eventually break away with large followers to the SDP and work with El-Rufai for his presidential ambition. Loyalists of Alia often make open provocative comments, attacking the SGF and the APC stakeholders that fought for the victory of the Governor at the polls. For instance, the Chief of Staff to Governor, Hon. Paul Biam, recently said that members of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) are more acceptable and valued than the original APC members who don’t belong to that faction.
There are also rumours of the plan to get Governor Alia’s cronies to emerge as SDP local government chairmanship candidates who will be declared winners, using the agency of the State Electoral body, should the governor not succeed in having his factional APC chairmanship candidates elected.
Sources around the governor indicate that an ally of Rotimi Amaechi, who was Governor Alia’s choice for ministerial appointment, Emmanuel Jime, is also backing the plot to decamp to the SDP. On one occasion, a video that has gone viral showed Jime fuelling some violent statements that if he were the governor, he could have done worse than what Alia is doing.
A few days ago, the Omakolo faction, backed by Gov Alia of the APC in Benue State, through its Organising Secretary, James Ornguga, announced a thank you tour across the 23 local governments of the state by Governor Alia, beginning from Tuesday, June 18th, 2024.
Findings reveal that Governor Alia intends to use the tour to garner the support of the people ahead of their decamping to the SDP. They are enthused by the presidential ambition of Mallam El-Rufai on the platform of the SDP. Governor Alia will use the next 10 days to gather people who will eventually decamp with him to the SDP.
In Benue State, the signs are glaring that Governor Alia will contest the 2027 governorship election on the platform of the SDP, while El-Rufai will be the Presidential candidate. Amaechi’s loyalist, Emmanuel Jime, is also expected to be the Senatorial candidate of the SDP for Benue North West Senatorial District.
At the time of writing this piece, the Benue State Secretariat of the SDP in Makurdi is was wearing a new look befitting a party that is preparing to welcome an important new member.
* Sambe writes from Nyiman in Makurdi.
