Former senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Benue South in 2023 elections, Comrade Daniel Onjeh, has condemned the invitation extended to some aides of Benue Governor Hyacinth Alia by the House of Representatives’ Committee on Public Petitions over the alleged misappropriation of N20 billion Benue local government funds.
He dismissed the invitation as a mere extension of their scheme to discredit Governor Alia.
In a statement on Tuesday, Onjeh accused members of the Benue National Assembly Caucus of orchestrating the invitation as part of a larger plot to disparage and distract Alia.
He said the Benue NASS Caucus was only amplifying the ululations of disgruntled stakeholders in the State, who he said are finding it difficult to accept and adjust to the new order of governance in Benue State.
Alia, he said, has introduced judicious utilisation of the state’s statutory allocations and revenues as against the old order of sharing monthly allocations amongst the elites and stakeholders.
“Fr. Alia has introduced a total departure from the old order of sharing monthly allocations amongst stakeholders. We know exactly what they are feeling, but they just have to accept and endure it because Fr. Alia is adopting the bottom-top approach to governance.
“The elites and stakeholders have had their fair share in the past; Fr. Alia is now determined to offer a new lease of life to the long-neglected Benue masses. That’s why he can now pay salaries, pensions and gratuities regularly in the State.
“Meanwhile, the projects that the governor’s detractors are making so much fuss over all have time lags. It’s not like when a government policy or project is pronounced and commissioned, it must be fully implemented on the same day, even though it might have officially commenced.
Why are they in such a hurry, after all, Fr. Alia has actually just started the re-engineering of Benue,” Onjeh stated.
“The Benue APC National Assembly Caucus,” Onjeh stated, “had not concealed its plot to discredit Governor Alia for whatever they hoped to achieve. For months now, they have embarked on a coordinated relentless attack on the Governor.
“They used his appointment of caretaker committee chairmen and councillors for the 23 local government areas in Benue State as an excuse to launch their smear and slander campaign against the Governor.”
He accused Senator Abba Moro of sponsoring a motion, which he described as partisan and self-serving motives in the Senate titled: “Urgent need to halt the erosion of democracy: The dissolution of elected councils in Benue State,” stating “Nobody has heard of the Motion again because senators eventually came to terms with the reality surrounding it.”
In countering Moro’s Motion, Onjeh stressed that in the first place, Governor Alia did not dissolve any democratically elected LG Executive but it was the Benue House of Assembly that acted within the purview of its powers by recommending the suspension of the elected local government executives found complicit in financial impropriety and mismanagement.
The Governor, he said, only complied by implementing the recommendation.
Onjeh stressed Moro’s call for the withholding of Benue LG funds was based on the flawed premise that the State Government wrongfully dissolved elected LG Executives.
The APC chieftain argued until Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution is amended to grant full financial and administrative autonomy to the LGAs, anything done to the contrary by the National Assembly will be mere window dressing.
He accused the caucus’s members of purportedly using organisation to write a petition against the Benue State Government, accusing it of misappropriating N20 billion.
Onjeh alleged Benue National Assembly Caucus has a vested interest in the inquisition which it is striving to drag Hon. Dr. Dennis Akura and some of Alia’s aides to Abuja.
