In 2023, Benue did not simply vote for a governor we entrusted our future to a priest in power. Hope walked into Government House draped in priestly robes, and we believed sanctity would finally replace corruption. We thought we had escaped Ortom’s rot, only to discover that it has returned, dressed in cassocks. Two years later, the cassock has become nothing more than a cloak of deception.
When Father Hyacinth Alia emerged as governor in 2023, many of us believed we were witnessing the dawn of a new moral order in Benue. After the years of Ortom’s reckless deceit, endless excuses, and unpaid salaries, people longed for a man who would restore dignity to governance. Alia, draped in priestly robes, seemed like that answer a man who would replace lies with truth, selfishness with service, and rot with renewal.
But two years down the line, the illusion has cleared, and the disappointment is staggering. Alia may not lie in the coarse, everyman language that Ortom perfected, but his polished evasions are no less dangerous. He sidesteps responsibility, detests accountability, and cloaks political maneuvering in the garb of moral uprightness.
The latest drama at the House of Assembly has stripped the cassock of its shine. Appointees who defied the legislature were briefly suspended, not for the recommended three months, but for a token one month only to be reinstated after the Speaker was conveniently ousted. Lies were quickly manufactured to justify the charade, leaving Benue with a legislature that has traded its conscience for crumbs. It is a theatre of shame that mocks the very idea of democracy.
Even more troubling is Alia’s suffocating grip on the state treasury. His excuse that he is protecting public funds from greedy vultures has grown thin and unconvincing. Who really controls the purse strings? Who benefits from the selective sharing of resources? Certainly not the ordinary citizens struggling under poverty while a government preaches austerity on one hand and practices indulgence on the other.
Yes, Alia pays salaries. Yes every governor is paying now, they don’t have an excuse because President Tinubu has watered the ground. Yes, two underpasses are rising in Makurdi. But governance is more than payrolls and concrete. It is about moral integrity, accountability, and the courage to lead without deceit. On this front, Alia has failed spectacularly.
Alia has mastered the art of hiding failure behind a smile and concrete blocks.
When lies wear clerical collars, they sting more than the lies of politicians.
The greatest tragedy is not Ortom’s failure it is that Alia has chosen to walk the same path while pretending to be different.
Two underpasses do not cover up two years of moral emptiness.
Benue’s House of Assembly is no longer a legislature it is a marketplace of conscience, and the price tag is cheap.
The cassock may cover the body, but it cannot conceal a bankrupt soul.
We asked for a shepherd, but what we got was another wolf in priestly robes.
Benue did not ask for miracles. We only asked for a governor who would be different from Ortom. Ironically, while Ortom’s failings were obvious, Alia’s have been masked in sanctimony. And sometimes, the cloth of priesthood is not enough to cover the nakedness of moral bankruptcy.
Alia has turned out to be what we never imagined, not just a weak leader, but a moral letdown. For a people who placed so much faith in him, that is the greatest betrayal of all.
History may forgive incompetence, but it never forgives betrayal. And in Alia, Benue has been betrayed.
Ortom broke our backs, but Alia has broken our spirit. For a people who placed their faith in him, that is the deepest wound of all.
Benue thought it was choosing morality over deceit. Two years later, it is clear, deceit only changed its wardrobe.
A governor who fears accountability is a danger to democracy. And right now, Benue is living in danger.
Stephanie Shaakaa
08034861434
