By: Enenche Enenche
The news coming in from Benue State of late has a colouration of what is happening in Rivers but with distinct features.
The archbishop of the political diocese of Benue, His Excellency Senator George Akume, has raised, mentored, and nurtured generations of politicians, and next to J.S. Tarka, no Benue son, dead or alive, has his level of credentials in this regard.
Since leaving office as Governor of Benue State, he has been involved in who takes over the state at every gubernatorial election. He went for a lawyer, Bar. Gabriel Suswan, in 2007; a pastor, Dr. Samuel Ortom, in 2015; and in 2023 for a reverend father. One will think that the profession of these men or the sacred oath they profess will make working with them to find common political ground possible, but the reverse is the case when they get into power. The “spirit of Fubara” will take over them, and sleepless nights are what the archbishop gets as a reward.
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In 2023, the archbishop went for a reverend father because he felt the state needed healing. He went for the “healing mass” specialist to heal the state. Since 2023, he made him governor; the archbishop has not slept or rested. The parish priest divided his APC lawmakers and added them to that of the PDP to produce the speaker of the House of Assembly during its inauguration.
Unlike Rivers, where Governor Fubara inaugurated all Wikites, in Benue, the parish priest cracked and had his way from the inception, and this put him at loggerheads with the APC party structure in the state.
After controlling the House, he went further to take over the party structure by going after the state APC chairman, Comrade Austine Agada. Austine Agada has been a longtime member of the Cathedral even when the parish priest was deep into his healing mass calling. The matter of who controls the party has been in court, and the Austine faction has the upper hand.
The national body of the party waded into the crisis, scrapped both the archbishop and parish priest factions, and set up a state leadership structure to conduct the local government election, with members drawn from both factions, but a parishioner as the chairman.
The archbishop factional chairman won in court in a judgment delivered by the state chief judge, one of the reasons they want him out. They produced their primaries like the parishioners produced theirs.
The parishioners have taken over the local governments while the children of the archbishop watch in disbelief.
Now that the chief judge has set up the local government electoral tribunal, there is tension in the camp of the parishioners. Every move, including dumping tipper loads of sand at the entrance of the venue of the tribunal and announcing the removal of the chief judge, couldn’t stop the children of the archbishop from advancing.
The day the tribunal validates the chairmanship and primaries conducted by the archbishop’s children, then the parishioners will lose all 23 chairmanships of the 23 local governments. This is the core of the fight going on in Benue.
Now that the tribunal has been relocated to Abuja, the parishioners are in tighter corners. The owner of the structure that brought them to power wants his structure back and he is likely going to take over the local governments too.
The parishioners have just one option: either they hold on to the current-sinking system and lose both the party structure and local governments, or give up the party structure and hold on to the local government. All these will be discussed on the table of negotiation as Benue is critical to the 2027 Renewed Hope Agenda, and everything will be done to reconcile both factions who appear to be better politicians than Governor Fubara and his street politics.
How they resolved it at the end of the day in front of the Jagaban of Africa and the Pope of Nigerian politics is strictly between the archbishop of the political archdiocese of Benue and his parish priest.
The senior political analyst has spoken
