Politics

Why We’re Not Happy With Governor Alia – APC

Published

2 years ago

December 10, 2023

The ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, in Benue has blamed its lingering rift with Governor Hyacinth Alia on his failure to treat the party with some respect and dignity.

The party also claimed that the Governor has consistently failed to consult its leaders and carry its members along on issues, contrary to the norm.

Addressing the media in Makurdi, the three State Zonal Chairmen of the party in the state including Wilfred Uji of Zone A, James Tor of Zone B and Bishop Pinot Ogbaji of Zone C regretted that Governor Alia’s attitude towards the party had created a gulf between them.

Speaking on behalf of the trio, Bishop Ogbaji explained that the crisis was not between the Secretary to the Government of the Federation, SGF, George Akume and the Governor, but a dispute between the Benue APC and the Governor.

According to him, “the shaky relationship between Governor Hyacinth Alia and the APC started in June this year, during the inauguration of the State Assembly where the governor had preference for a candidate for the position of Speaker but could not confer with the leadership of the party, rather he allowed the party to painstakingly sit, zone the position and anoint a candidate that was not his choice.

“The end result was an embarrassing situation where stalwarts of the party were enmeshed in a shameful altercation that clearly lowered them and the party in the chamber of the Benue State House of Assembly.

“The party again nominated and spread other principal officers of the Assembly, but shockingly, the Speaker happily accepted all nomiations from the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as duly endorsed by the PDP State Chairman and Secretary, however, he jettisoned the list submitted by the APC and rather announced the list that was allegedly submitted by the governor, through his Chief of Staff.

“It was a humiliating experience for the party, having to face that level of neglect in the hands of an administration we all laboured hard to plant, nevertheless, we sustained our faith in the governor and his government.

“In picking his commissioners, the Governor exercised his sole discretion without the usual tradition of directing local governments to make nominations taking cognizance of zonings and necessary political permutations, he rather made his independent choices as he found soothing but the party did not oppose him; we rather gave our full support to his action since that was his own State Executive and Security Council and he needed people he could trust.

“And when it was time for the nomination of Caretaker Committees to administer the Local Government Councils, Governor Alia threw it back to party members during the second stakeholders meeting by demanding an immediate nomination of three candidates each for the positions of Council Caretaker Chairman, Deputy and Secretary as well as Supervisory Councillors across the 23 Local Governments, demanding for 2 slots of Supervisory Councillors from each of the Local Governments.

“This was the first time a Governor would demand such from the Caretaker Council formation as against the usual one slot per local government. The party jubilantly agreed and obeyed the directive by holding meetings, and painstakingly nominating and submitting their various lists with a relieving sense of belonging.

“But quite shockingly, when the nominations were finally announced, the party was bewildered that 80 percent of the names were outside the actual nominees that were sent to the governor on his directive.

“We are not pushing to usurp or share powers with the Governor but if the governor was interested in forming a unity government, he would have simply called a general meeting of all Benue people and requested nominations from them rather than allowing APC members sweat to microzone the positions, shop for names and raise the hopes of candidates who were eventually ignored, dropped and their opponents, most of whom are members of rival political parties appointed.

“In all this misgiving and dissatisfaction, the announcement of Caretaker Committees marked the pinnacle of a noticeably sour relationship between Governor Alia and the APC in Benue State and this snowballing anger by all standards is justifiable.

“It is also trite to mention that as elders in the exco, we, the three Zonal Chairmen did not rest on our oars in seeking solutions; we have made frantic reconciliatory moves, trying to find out what the real issues were but in all our efforts, we could not get tangible issues capable of tearing the party apart.

“Our Leader, Sen. George Akume has deep love for Gov. Hyacinth Alia and in all our meetings, he has never spoken ill of the governor at any point; he has consistently admonished us to pray and support the governor to succeed, same way the governor eulogizes Sen. Akume at all times and hints of a cordial relationship between them.

“But the condition of Benue APC can best be likened to 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.”

Reacting, the immediate past Executive Secretary of the Nigerian Shippers’ Council and former APC Governorship candidate, Mr. Emmanuel Jime dismissed the allegations by the Zonal Chairmen saying, “those making the accusation are ignorant and it is without any foundation.

“In a Presidential democracy, the Governor is the Leader of the Party in his State just like any other State Governor. The tragedy of our democratic experiment so far is that most of us see politics as a meal ticket.

“Whenever an elected official chooses the path to real development, you will have the stomach infrastructure politicians attempting the distraction strategy. Benue is in dire need of a development agenda. The Governor appears to be focused on this. All men and women of goodwill must join in this all important endeavour.”
VANGUARD

Politics

Why I left Tinubu’s Govt — Former Aide Aliyu Audu Declares

Published

13 hours ago

June 16, 2025

Editor

A former Senior Special Adviser to President Bola Tinubu on Public Affairs, Aliyu Audu, has revealed that he resigned from the administration in order to actively campaign against Tinubu’s re-election bid in 2027.

Speaking on Monday during an interview on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily, Audu said his decision was driven by a matter of “principle and conscience,” as he accused the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) of attempting to turn Nigeria into a one-party state.

“It confirmed it on one hand, and on the other hand, it strengthened my resolve to not work for him in 2027,” Audu said, referring to Tinubu’s Democracy Day speech where the president claimed to enjoy seeing the opposition in disarray.

“I couldn’t in all honesty and in my conscience be in his government knowing I’m plotting against removal in 2027, because I will, and by God, we will remove him. Collectively, Nigerians will install a leader that will be our chosen, not his chosen. Not emilokan (my turn), but awa lokan (our turn), in fact, gbogbo wa lokan (all of us).”

He also criticised the inclusion of Nyesom Wike, a PDP member and current Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, in the APC-led government, questioning his loyalty and the legitimacy of such a move.

“What is Wike doing in our government? If he’s going to leave the PDP, he should leave. If we’re doing a government of national unity, you deal with the party, not individuals. The party is what we vote for — not Bola Tinubu but APC; not Atiku but PDP; not Peter Obi but Labour Party.”

Audu’s resignation letter, dated June 8, criticised the APC’s political trajectory and warned against what he described as a deliberate silencing of opposition voices. In a follow-up statement, he clarified that while he does not support the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), he would not lend himself “as an instrument to reduce Nigeria to a one-party state.”

“If we now begin to silence or crush opposition simply because we have the upper hand, then we are no different from the very system we once criticised under Obasanjo in 2003,” he said.

Politics

VIDEO: How Peter Obi Betrayed Me – Kenneth Okonkwo In New Interview

Published

3 days ago

June 14, 2025

Editor

Veteran actor and ex-spokesperson of the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council, Kenneth Okonkwo, has accused former presidential candidate, Peter Obi, of betrayal in the wake of internal party disputes.

In a viral interview with Symfoni which started trending on Saturday, Okonkwo, who officially exited the Labour Party in February 2025, revealed that Obi went against his advice and returned to support the embattled Julius Abure-led faction of the party, despite alleged warnings.

According to him, Obi was misled by LP executives who claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission had recognised them.

He said, “Any politician that knows what he’s doing cannot be betrayed by another. If there is anybody that betrayed the other, I can say it emphatically that Peter Obi betrayed me.

“The Julius Abure-led LP members lied to Obi that the Independent National Electoral Commission had accepted them and Obi surreptitiously went back to them but I told him: ‘Sir, you have made a public statement on integrity and even if INEC has accepted them, that is not a criterion for you to go back and start dealing with them because they have shown that they are not democratic. If you go back to them, they will destroy your political career and everything you have said about integrity will die.’”

He said that despite privately urging Obi not to align with a group he described as “undemocratic” and “agents of the government,” Okonkwo said Obi went ahead to publicly endorse them.

“I told Obi that these people had become agents in the hands of the government to destabilise him. What they did was absolutely illegal and unconstitutional, I told him that if he went back to them, I wouldn’t join him in doing so.

“Thereafter, I called all the people that were in the inner circle and told them the same thing about what Obi was trying to do. I told them he wanted to go back with the Abure people and if he did, I wouldn’t go back with him because I do not swallow back my words.

“And after saying all those things, within like 72 hours, Obi went back to Abure’s office to publicly endorse them and while he was there talking to them, one of the leaders in that executive sent me the video to mock me that the person I was fighting for against them has come to their office to endorse them.

“It was when INEC dissociated itself from Abure that Obi came out to start acting neutral but I told him he could not be neutral and something had to be done,” he added.

The Labour Party has been embroiled in a prolonged leadership crisis, with opposing factions laying claim to the party’s national structure.

The Abure-led faction has faced allegations of financial mismanagement and anti-democratic practices, which critics say contradict the party’s reformist image.

Okonkwo, a known loyalist of Obi’s political ideology, cited these irregularities as his reason for quitting the party earlier in the year.

Watch video below:

https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202https://twitter.com/i/status/1933867577651925202

Politics

Amaechi Slams Tinubu’s Policies In Fresh Outburst

Published

4 days ago

June 12, 2025

Editor

Former Minister of Transportation and two-time governor of Rivers State, Rotimi Amaechi, has asked the coalition opposition to kick President Bola Tinubu out of office if Nigeria is to escape its deepening economic crisis.

In a no-holds-barred interview with the BBC, Amaechi, a founding member and chieftain of the All Progressives Congress, lamented the country’s deteriorating condition and signalled his willingness to help forge a new opposition coalition to rescue the nation.

“People are dying. People are starving. I myself am feeling the effects of hunger,” he said, painting a grim picture of life under the current administration.

Amaechi’s statement comes in the wake of the APC’s recent endorsement of Tinubu as its sole presidential candidate for 2027, a move Amaechi openly questioned.

While reiterating his loyalty to the party, he warned that fidelity to a political platform should never come at the cost of national conscience.

“If the government is failing the country, you don’t just go along because you’re in the same party. You know that’s not right,” he stated emphatically.

Though he stopped short of confirming a 2027 presidential bid, the former minister said the option remained on the table.

“Certainly, I believe I can make a meaningful contribution,” he added, hinting that his political journey may not yet be over.

He spoke of widespread poverty, spiralling food insecurity, and daily tragedies that now dot the national landscape.

Reflecting on his years as Chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Amaechi lamented that the number of out-of-school children then pegged at 10 million, had since ballooned.

The economic hardship, he said, had also deepened insecurity.

“The Boko Haram insurgency is not just a religious crisis. Many of those involved are driven by desperation and hunger,” he asserted, linking terrorism, banditry, and kidnapping to a broader socioeconomic collapse.

Amaechi’s declaration added momentum to an emerging political realignment.

Talks were already underway among key opposition figures, including Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and Peter Obi of the Labour Party, as they explored the possibility of a unified front against Tinubu in 2027.

Even ex-Governor Nasir El-Rufai of Kaduna State and once a key Tinubu ally had signalled interest in backing an opposition alliance.

But as opposition forces stir, the ruling party continues to absorb defectors, prompting fears of Nigeria drifting toward a one-party state, a scenario Amaechi warned could undermine democracy and silence dissent.

“We’re thinking that if we come together and win the election, the country will certainly witness change,” he said, suggesting an urgent need for a credible alternative.