More memorable situations are coming out of the 2023 governorship election. While people in states like Lagos, Imo, Delta and others found it difficult to cast their votes, the good people of Benue State seized the opportunity to make history for themselves.
They elected a Catholic priest as their Governor.
Benue is the only state in Nigeria to ever elect a Catholic priest as Governor.
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared Reverend Father Dr. Hyacinth Iormem Alia the winner and governor-elect of Benue State.
He contested under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Although this is not the first time a Catholic priest is emerging as governor in Benue, however, Rev. Alia’s victory is significant in Nigeria’s politics today.
Up till this moment, many people are still wondering how the Catholic priest was able to defeat skilled and seasoned politicians in their own game.
One with God, is majority, they say.
The First Priest
Indeed, you may be wondering why the people of Benue State elected a Catholic priest as their governor.
It is because they are familiar with the experience.
In January 1992, Very Rev. Fr. Moses Orshio Adasu become governor of the state.
He won under the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP).
Till date, the people of Benue maintains that Rev. Adasu is the best governor to have ruled the state.
Unfortunately, he ruled for only one year and ten months.
This is because, General Sani Abacha removed him from office in November 1993.
Rev. Fr. Alia Vs The Roman Catholic Church
You see, there is a saying that if a road is good, people will walk that road twice.
That is playing out in Benue State.
In May 2022, Rev Fr Hyacinth Iormem Alia upset the Catholic Church when he announced his decision to get the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Benue State.
Days before the primary the Catholic Diocese of Gboko in Benue suspended the priest for joining “partisan politics”.
Fr Alia had picked up the APC 50 million Naira governorship form and had been cleared by the ruling party to participate alongside 11 successful aspirants in the party’s primary.
But the Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Gboko, William Avenya, in a letter dated May 20, 2022, suspended Fr Alia from public ministry “after series of admonitions” to him to quit politics.
“The Mother Church does not allow her clerics to get involved in partisan politics on their own,” the bishop sternly warned in the suspension letter.
Against All Odds
Fr Alia was unfazed.
He says his “motivation to abandon the pulpit and contest as governor of the state is because of his passion to turn the state into a better place and liberate the citizens from poverty”.
He later won the APC governorship primary the same month.
In a landslide, the priest defeated many political gladiators in the APC in Benue, including former Minister of State for Niger Delta, Sam Ode.
Others were a former Deputy Governor, Steven Lawani; former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, Mike Aondoakaa; as well as the immediate past Chief of Staff to Governor Samuel Ortom, Terwase Orbunde.
More Controversy
As a ‘Man of God’, Alia in his political journey has been faced with many obstacles and tribulations.
Not just before the primary election of the APC.
Ordinarily, one would think Alia’s only obstacle would be the Roman Catholic Church. But it was not.
This time it was his political rivals.
They launched their attack after Alia won the primary.
In December 2022, Aondoakaa, an APC member approached a court to challenge the outcome of the primary.
He asked the court to declare among other reliefs that Fr Alia was not fit to contest the primary because he was not a member of the APC.
Aondoakaa also asked the court to declare that Fr Alia could not validly contest and be declared as the winner of the APC primary election.
His reason was that “he is an ordained priest of the Catholic Church and fully engaged as a minister in the employment and or service of the Catholic Church.
But Justice Ahmed Mohammed of the Federal High Court, Abuja struck out the suit and held that although the suit was a pre-election matter, the ex-AGF filed it out of time.
Aondoakaa did not give up on his quest.
He took the case to the Supreme Court.
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Justice John Okoro who led a five-man panel of justices in February 2023 dismissed the suit and held that Fr Alia remained the Benue State governorship candidate of the APC for the 2023 general elections.
Alia’s Victory
Joy seem to have returned to Benue.
The people are once again hopeful. They grabbed what appeared to be their best option.
Father Alia later won the March 18 governorship poll in the North Central state.
The Catholic priest won 473,933 votes ahead of his closest rival and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Titus Uba, who scored 223,913.
The Returning Officer, Professor Faruq Kuta, and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna declared Alia the winner.
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Being a Catholic priest, the people of Benue are expecting a new level of growth, good security and governance, good education good healthcare, among others.
Alia will take over from Governor Samuel Ortom of the PDP G5.
Future Controversies
Speaking on Fr. Alia’s choice to dump the pulpit for ‘partisan politics’, Mr. Gbenga, a high profile member of the Catholic Church says the priest had already been punished by the church.
He says the priest had already made his choice, hence there will be no need for more punishment from the the church.
According to him “Father Alia may be the ‘messiah’ holding the deliverance of Benue State.”
