Ortindin Loho
Politics, they say in Nigeria is all about interest, which suggests that the person you fought yesterday from the other political party may tomorrow become your friend as long as the interests of both persons meet and are beneficial to each other.
Benue State Governor, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, can be regarded as a political neophyte, because he had no political history before lately joining the All Progressives Congress, APC, to become the governor of the state.
Since he joined Politics, he has been in the eye of the storm. He would confess that his nomination or selection as the governorship candidate of the party did not come with ease. He had no chance of winning, no flicker of hope. In his hands was his suspension letter for joining politics. Shame was setting in and a thunderous mocking was awaiting his political failure. But Senator George Akume, pulled the trigger in his favour killing the governorship ambitions of other aspirants and handing the ticket to Alia. Lucky Alia, happy Alia. Akume did it. Battle one was over.
After the election, his victory was challenged by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, from the tribunal to the Supreme Court. PDP among other things questioned his mode of emergence as a candidate. At the end of the judiciary tussle, the Supreme Court upheld Alia’s victory. Battle two was over.
While battle two was ongoing, Governor Alia initiated his battle with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, Senator George Akume not to yield to his influence. This was manifested in the election of the leadership of the Benue State House Assembly and other appointments, where Becky Orpin a candidate for the house speakership alleged to be sponsored by Akume lost.
The fight with Akume has currently extended to seizing the party structure from Akume who is referred to as the leader of the party to himself to become the leader of the party and not Akume. Tough fight.
In the current fight for the party structure of the state, there are now two party state chairmen operating from different offices.
Omakolo is the governor’s recognised chairman of the party even though the national Secretariat of the party does not know him. Austin Agada, whom the court had reinstated after his suspension, remains the authentic party chairman, but not recognised by Governor Alia. One state, one political party, two chairmen. What a confusion.
Alia does not seem to be winning the fight of getting the control of structure of the party in his hands. Impossible is the best word to use which is why he may be under pressure to leave APC to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP and the signs are clear enough.
Since Alia began fighting Akume, he has found Senator Gabriel Suswam as his ally. He is alleged to have held several meetings with Suswam, the purpose of the meeting we weren’t told, but we can deduce for certain that they didn’t discuss the merger of APC and PDP.
The Senator Suswam of the PDP has been commending Alia’s achievements. Good opposition many would say but greased-palm opposition others will say too. In all, Suswam may be for Alia than he is for PDP at the moment. Is he John the Baptist?
Another sign that the Benue State Governor may dump APC is his total disregard for the directives of the National Secretariat of his party directing that all court cases by the party be withdrawn and the status quo be maintained.
It is rumoured that the governor will not obey the directive and is ready to face the section after its seven-day expiration. Alia is ‘Omakololised’ and can’t be ‘Agadad.’ What can be more telling of his departure than this?
Just recently, the governor visited another staunched PDP stakeholder, the G-14 Chairman, Laha Dzever Of course, they discussed, but over what? Certainly not the merger of APC and PDP.
In all these moves, it shows that Alia is tired of his party where he is fighting to become a leader. He may be consulting people to clear the road to meet the leader of the PDP. But we wait to see the day he will meet the leader of PDP in the state, the immediate past Governor, Chief Samuel Ortom. For now, we watch his romance with PDP stakeholders.
Would PDP be returning to the government house soon, but would Alia respect leaders and stakeholders of the party? We will keep taps as the events unfold.
