Benue Gov, APC Trade Words over Disruption of Stakeholders’ Meeting
Governor Hyacinth Alia and the All Progressives Congress (APC) leadership in Benue State yesterday traded words over the disruption of a scheduled stakeholders’ meeting of the party.
The face-off between the governor and his party leadership in the state worsened on Friday when there was a heavy gunfire near the APC secretariat in Makurdi, the state capital as security agencies took over the facility to maintain law and order.
Alia, in reaction to the disturbances, called on security agencies to arrest the state Chairman of the APC, Comrade Austin Agada, and the Executive Director, Finance and Accounts at the Federal Housing Authority (FHA), Mathias Byuan, for allegedly destabilising his government.
But the APC leadership in the state flayed the governor, urging him to wear his thinking cap before he causes further damage to the image of the state.
The state’s Publicity Secretary of the party, Daniel Ihomun, in a statement yesterday, blamed the governor for the disruption of the earlier scheduled working visit of the Executive Director, Housing, Finance and Accounts, FHA, Dr Byuan, to the APC state secretariat in Makurdi, the state capital.
He alleged that Governor Alia sent thugs through his Senior Special Assistant on Youth Mobilisation and Empowerment, Moses Mkeenem, to barricade all roads leading to the APC secretariat to prevent party officials from attending to their legitimate duties.
Ihomun alleged that the governor later went out personally encouraging the hoodlums to attack members of the party and disrupt party activities.
But Alia described the duo -– Agada and Byuan -– as “merchants of crisis” and appealed to the people of Benue State to remain security conscious and report suspicious activities of fifth columnists.
The governor also in a statement through his spokesperson, Tersoo Kula, said he received intelligence reports that the APC’s Agada and Byuan hired armed men into Benue State to shatter the relative peace in the state against his earlier directive that all political gatherings in the state be suspended due to the volatile security situation in the state.
He said, “But shockingly, the armed men who accompanied Agada and Byuan reportedly made their way into the heart of the town in a convoy and started shooting sporadically when they got to Tito Gate, Kashim Ibrahim Road, Makurdi.
“The duo led the armed men around parts of the old GRA and were headed to a property on Tarka way when the Nigerian police arrived and began to engage them before they disappeared.
“We urge Benue people to be security conscious and immediately report activities of these fifth columnists as we call on security agencies to arrest these merchants of crisis and bring them to book to serve as a deterrent to others,” the governor added.