The Benue State Zonal Chairmen of the All Progressives Congress (APC) have stated that the current crisis within the party is involving Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, the governor of Benue State, and not Comr. Austtin Agada or Sen. George Akume, the state’s party leader and the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF).
At a Thursday, no-holds-barred press conference in Makurdi, the chairmen, spearheaded by Zone C chairman Bishop Pinot Ogbaji, made these remarks.
Ogbaji stated that the governor’s silence on the matter and his decision to designate caretaker committee chairs of local government councils in the state without consulting with the party are the root causes of the current upheaval.
He went on to say that the party wasn’t trying to take over the governor’s authority, but rather that he should consult honestly instead of letting them micro-zone local government caretaker committee posts and then removing them and replacing them with people they don’t know.
“A helpless husband with a very beautiful wife that sleeps around with only his neighbours and enemies while he, the lawful husband, is deprived of his conjugal rights,” Ogbaji said, describing the situation facing the Benue State APC.
According to him, Governor Alia exuded greater self-assurance when she courted individuals outside of the APC. The “emergency APC stakeholders” he talks to, he was cautioned, were the ones who fought against his candidacy for party flagbearer in the previous election and who then used litigation to drag him through the courts till they killed him.
As Sen Barnabas Gemade, who levied monumental litigation against Alia, led the likes of Sen Ameh Ebute, who fought against the nomination of deputy governor Sam Ode, on a voyage to the governor, Bishop Ogbaji said that the last trip of the so-called party stakeholders leaves much to ponder.