By Francis Atume, Makurdi
The Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, governorship candidate in Benue State ahead of the 2027 general elections, Professor Terhemba Shija, has promised to reset the state to be in conformity with the vision and mission of its founding fathers.
Shija made the pledge on Wednesday in Makurdi during an interactive session with journalists.
He argued that after the late Aper Aku administration, which has been adjudged the best and remains unbeatable till date because of his vision and vast knowledge of the State, subsequent administrations deviated from his agenda.
According to him, the first civilian governor structured his vision to accommodate the Civil Service, which was why he built a befitting State Secretariat for workers, the youth by constructing a stadium for sporting activities, industries for employment, and farmers by clearing vast farmlands across the State for large mechanized farming.
He added that Aku also established Lobi Bank to provide loans to farmers to expand farming activities and migrate from subsistence to mechanised agriculture to improve their standard of living and contribute to the economic growth of the state, while Benue Hotels, he noted, was established to cater for accommodation for investors coming to the state for business.
Shija equally recalled that the Aper Aku administration trained Benue indigenes abroad, lamenting that after that regime, there is no drinking water even in Makurdi, the state capital.
He expressed worry that those who served the state as governors and are still alive are still proud to say they were former governors.
“Some of those ex-chief executives sold shares of the state that were in companies and went away with the money and people still worship them today. If we are thinking correctly, why should we consider such people as heroes?” Shija queried.
The NDC governorship hopeful, who insisted that development is not done in isolation, condemned the Alia administration’s decision to construct an underpass at High-Level roundabout without constructing roads that link properly to the bridge.
He also blamed Governor Alia for allowing himself to be surrounded by people who do not mean well for him, such that one of them told him during a church service that the powers of a governor are more than that of God.
According to Shija, the NDC has come to rescue the land because Benue is no longer in the hands of its people, especially with the advent of insecurity which started during Senator George Akume’s administration when Fulani wanted to take over the land, adding that the situation continued during the Suswam administration down to Ortom.
He recalled that Governor Ortom particularly managed the crisis by facilitating the enactment of the Open Grazing Prohibition Law but blamed his administration for poorly implementing it, noting that its major challenge was the indiscriminate killings when Fulani come for retaliation after their seized cattle could not be found.
He traced the history of IDP camps to that episode.
Shija condemned the idea of allowing energetic people to live in IDP camps, a situation he said has received government approval, a development that has made people scramble for leadership of the State Emergency Management Agency, SEMA, looking at the agency as a goldmine while innocent people continue to suffer.
He expressed worry that IDP camps have become a normal way of life with no one, including the government of the day, caring that the displaced return to their ancestral homes.
The NDC candidate said he has offered himself to rescue the land and do things completely opposite of what Governor Alia is doing by not denying that there is genocide and to work assiduously to rescue the land.
“I will do exactly what Alia has failed to do, I will not deny genocide. My government will be interested in facing insecurity squarely. I will not call insecurity skirmishes or fold my arms to watch Benue State being overrun and its people killed like cows. If you kill 200 like what happened in Yelewata, the whole world will hear and come to Benue. If it means using the entire state allocation from the federal government to fight insecurity to protect the people, my government will do that,” Shija assured.
He said one of his friends who is a governor once told him that he refused establishing IDP camps in his state, preferring to support people to live in their homes instead of IDP camps like it is done in Benue.
He assured that if given the mandate, he would immediately close down IDP camps and encourage affected communities to stay in their homes, saying it is better to be killed than running away to camps to live like destitutes.
