DANCING TIME OVER FOR GOV. REV. FR. HYACINTH ALIA

One of the breaking news items on most national newspapers this Sunday the 4th June, 2023, was the killing of twenty-five people by unknown gunmen in Benue State, barely four days after the inauguration of the new APC-led government headed by Rev. Father Hyacinth Alia, a man who walked the thorns-strewn path in his party to the state government house. A man whom the good people of the state expect to bring succour after experiencing Egypt-like plagues under the Ortom administration, ranging from non-payment of pensioners, several months of owing public servants to the endless butcheries at the hands of inhuman terrorists. The only good-riddance response to the dark days of Ortom was the massive protest votes APC got during the gubernatorial elections. Interestingly enough, this would not be the first time a Rev. Father would pilot the affairs of this largely agrarian and civil servants' state. Rev. Father Moses Adasu of blessed memory had blazed the trail with resounding success. Little wonder that, armed with these enlivening memories, the choice of another reverend father was not a hard one to make. Unfortunately, unlike the Adasu era, the state, nay, Nigeria as a country was not as divided as it is today, a negative dividend of an eight-year misrule by Buhari. It is in this regard that the people of the state expect that Alia should by now have known the daunting responsibilities before him when he offered himself to serve as the number one man of the state. Apart from the huge arrears of salaries and unpaid pensions, the next fundamental need of the people is security. If Ortom despite signing the Anti-grazing Law was overwhelmed by the killing sprees in the state, the people expect the anointed man-of-God Governor to address this issue squarely. At least, apart from the mundane resources, he has the edge over his predecessor of direct access to divine guidance. His victory dancing steps could elicit some smiles on the pain-wracked faces of a much wronged people, led daily and uncomplaining to the slaughter in countless numbers by their enemies who have sworn their annihilation, but these benign smiles in the midst of suffering will be stillborn if the governor does not wake up to his responsibilities. The dancing time appears to be over for Governor Alia when blood continues to flow unstaunched and unabated under his watch. He has to boot himself awake from this circus show in a land where laughter has long ceased to the enormity of the responsibilities before him and deliver his people like the biblical Moses. It behoves him to think outside the box and lives up to the expectations as the chief security officer of the state. The people of the state too need to support him in this regard, put their heads together with a view to fighting this common enemy that wants to exterminate their existence off the surface of the earth. It is not about inter-party animosity whether APC or PDP or Labor Party, for this tsunami that has come upon the state threatens its very existence. All avenues of solution should not be left unexplored, and at the pains of apostasy even the recourse to the ancestral intervention like the Ombatse cry of the Eggon people of Nasarawa State when they perceived killings verging on the genocidal, should not be out of place. Mr. Rev. Governor, the jollity time is over, as it is not yet Uhuru in the state.