The Tiv have an adage that “Bua maren sha ashe a mbayev ga” literally translated to mean ‘It is abomination for a cow to give birth in the presence of children’.
Yesterday, the power order of the Federal Government of Nigeria converged on Benue State to grace the occasion of a Thanksgiving event in honour of the Honourable Minister of Water Resources and Environment, Professor Joseph Utsev.
At the head of the armada was the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF) Senator George Akume, with Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, heads of federal agencies and parastatals, captains of industry, members of the diplomatic corps, and the likes.
It was the image and persona of the Federal Government with a mix of the international community present in Benue State as guests, who were deserving of the full complement of state protocol recognition, attended by a State Banquet and Command Performance.
It is an established convention that such governmental presence be accorded the deserved protocol recognition by no less a personality than the Governor of the state as their Chief Host, Chief Chaperon and Chief Security Orderly.
Read Also: Breaking: Gov. Alia’s SSA on youth Mobilization reportedly attacks other appointees with thugs
This is not a personal matter, but one as of right under an existing convention.
Then the occasion itself offered a veritable ground for cultivation of relations with those wielders of federal and international power which could be exploited to further the delivery of good governance by a serious state Chief Executive.
But, alas!, the Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, totally shunned the entire federal party of guests to his state, neither receiving them in person nor sending an official of his government to receive and wrlcome them.
The governor also did not attend the Thanksgiving occasion in honour of the only Minister in the federal cabinet from his state, he neither sent a representative to the event.
Such conduct by Governor Alia amounts to ‘letting the cow give birth in the presence of children’, which is shredding the veil of basic decorum and prestige off the personality of government, thereby rendering it naked in public.
It invariably translates to an insult on the federal government as a whole which the SGF represents, and sadly, it exposes the governor to ridicule in the eyes of the world as lacking in knowledge of even the basic etiquette of government.
Bemgba Iortyom writes as a concerned Benue son.
1st April, 2024.
