Alia ignored warnings from Akume, others on Benue's security - Lawmaker
The lawmaker representing Kwande/Ushongo Federal Constituency, Terseer Ugbor, has stated that Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, ignored warnings from the Secretary-General of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, and other members of the All Progressives Congress (APC) about the impending security pitfalls in the state.
He said Alia’s refusal to conduct adequate consultations before appointing his cabinet contributed to Benue’s current state of anarchy.
Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Monday, Ugbor said, ”He conducted the local government election in the state and single-handedly hand-picked the 23 chairmen and all the 276 councillors in the state without the input of the SGF.
”Alia turned down all the nominations from the SGF and those of us in the House of Assembly who worked and supported him during his campaign. We had a manifesto, and we all thought we would come together to implement those things that we campaigned on,” he said.
Ugbor stressed that Alia is new to politics, given his religious background, hence his inability to checkmate the rising tide of massacres and genocide in the state.
Ugbor added that Benue has made several attempts to establish a state security apparatus since former Governor Samuel Ortom introduced the anti-open grazing law.
The lawmaker fumed that Alia came in and set up volunteer guards, Anyam Nyor, which has proven to be ineffective since its inception.
”The problem is that Alia came from the church; he was not a politician. He did not understand the role he needed to play to naturally and systematically take over the leadership of the party,” he said.
The lawmaker said the only way to checkmate the killings is for communities in the state to come up with ways to defend themselves against their attackers.
“You see, the DG of the DSS publicly said communities will have to come up with self-defence mechanisms. Communities will have to defend themselves. Communities will have to come up with vigilantes and other systems where you can protect your communities, ” Ugbor said.
