Open letter to Father Hyacinth Alia, the governor-elect of Benue

BY CHIMAOBI CLEMENT EMEFU

May I first of all express my encouragement to you over your election as the incoming governor of Benue state. When people are elected into public offices, I am most careful to tell them the usual “congratulations” that every other person chants. The mindset behind such accolades could be misleading when we truly understand the weight of that call to service. Contextually in the case of Benue, your being elected today against all sociological, institutional and religious odds, I choose to reassure you rather, of my prayerful support; that you may succeed in really serving the people of the state and Nigerians at large who have suffered so much at the hands of heartless politicians. Notwithstanding this wish, I am already afraid for you.

Why do I write to you?

Obviously, you can see that I am not from Benue but I am a concerned Nigerian. That gives me a valid impetus to write to you. Secondly, we share the same priesthood of Jesus Christ, and so I have another overwhelming responsibility to fraternally reach out to you, especially in the face of a danger that might ruin your call to service.

Let me believe that you do not choose to tread the path of the conscienceless, selfish and “normal” Nigerian politicians. I say this following your speech at the courtesy visit to  President Muhammadu Buhari at the state house in Abuja on Wednesday, April 5, 2023. The dismay, the shock and the scandalous feeling which regurgitated in me at your speech on political correctness lead me today, on the eve of Easter, to make this interrogative submission (1), and to merge it with an appeal-to-conscience remark (2).

Interrogative submission, disturbing questions

Father Alia, honourable governor-elect of Benue state, did I hear you say before journalists, following your visit to the president, that the elections of February/March 2023 in Nigeria were “free and fair”? Please my brother-priest, could you make me and others, who may be scandalised by this comment, understand better in which way the last elections were free and fair for you? Could you please share your own source of information, I beckon on you. 

In that same video clip, you went on to congratulate the president for ensuring a solid democracy. Is it not under the same PMB administration where thousands of Benue people were killed and many more displaced? Just yesterday, following your visit, more people were killed in the Umogidi community of Entekpa-Adoka in Otukpo LGA of the state. The outgoing governor of Benue state, Samuel Ortom, was on several occasions helplessly decrying these crimes against humanity and beyond words against democracy. Why do you choose to, at your very first national outing, rubbish those sympathetic claims of your predecessor, while canonising an administration that evidently allowed such crimes?

Furthermore, you also congratulated INEC over the organisation of the sham called elections of 2023 in Nigeria. Oh Father Alia, what is your source of such an assertion? Why have you then chosen to join “them” to continue the mental torturing of millions of Benue people who voted for you; not because of APC, but because they saw a priest of God, who courageously damned the consequences of the ecclesiastical sanctions over involvement in political office, to come out to save his people? May I, therefore, draw your attention to some facts, while appealing to your Christian conscience to right the colossal wrong that your first public statement as governor-elect has already plastered on your road to the government house in Makurdi, come 29th of May, 2023.

Appeal to conscience

Priest of God, governor-elect of Benue state – Do you recall this Gospel passage: “The Spirit of the LORD is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,  to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed” (Luke 4:18)? Beyond the wisdom, limitations and institutional principles of the Catholic Church’s law, which suspends you from the priestly ministry while you exercise this political function, I strongly believe that baptismally, the above passage is true and prophetic to your call to service in Benue state. Are you then going to deny that Spirit of God the project of liberating His people, the helpless and traumatised people of Benue state from the hands of their oppressors?

You have already missed the very first symbolic opportunity whereby you could have given to the president the strongest signal that you are not like the “normal Nigerian politician”, but rather as a “Moses” and like one of your predecessors, the late Fr. Moses Adasu, to liberate the oppressed. Definitely, the comment you made before the whole nation, purporting that the elections were free and fair has smeared your integrity; and you must realise that it will take the most radical reforms to be erased from the minds of the 95 percent of Nigerians whom you have already stabbed at the back even before assuming office. 

While I refer you to the thought-provoking and excellently-worded letter-article of Chimamanda Adichie to President Joe Biden of the USA — titled “Nigeria’s Hollow Democracy: Why is America congratulating the winner of this disastrous election?” — for you to see in detail most of the reasons why you should not have gone in that direction, I wish to remind you that it was neither the APC nor President Buhari that elected you to this office. The poor people of Benue did, for whom democracy must be recognised as what it truly is: “the government of the people, by the people and for the people”, and not for a particular political elite. To these poor people belongs the power that has been vested in you. And so, my dear brother, never be an oppressor to our people, either by your politically-correct public pronouncements or by your actions to please just a few. 

Conclusion

I will not fail to pray for you. This is because even Saul, after he flagrantly massacred the people of God, became Paul, the true soldier of Christ in the service of the people of God and the Church. May the Holy Spirit empower you — like that FUTO professor, Nnenna Oti, the returning officer for the Abia state governorship election, who resisted all the threats and financial inducements to perpetrate a crime against ordinary Nigerians — to also resist the pressures of the cabals.

Peace with you and Happy Easter!

Chimaobi Clement Emefu, a spiritan priest from Imo state, can be reached via [email protected]