By Peter Awunah
awunahpeter@gmail.com
In the 1990s when Fr Hyacinth Alia was conducting his public ministry with “healing masses” and performing “miracles”, he made the people to believe that all other catholic priests, particularly his seniors didn’t like him because, according to him, he had the gift of performing miracles of healing from God, whereas other priests did not possess such a gift.
Alia is like the groom who disagreed with his bride and manhandled her on the morning of their wedding, insulted his in-laws, refused to pay the cake baker, destroyed decorations at the reception venue and sent every guest home. The honeymoon ended before the wedding.
The man is like a bull in a Chinese shop. He has fought everyone who helped him to become governor. I will come back to this later.
Alia has an amazing capacity for telling lies and misleading people. He worked against nearly all his superiors including bishops, but turned round to tell the parishioners that he was being victimized by the senior priests and bishops because he had a “divine gift” of healing that they lacked. But till today, there is no one to step forward and say that Alia healed them!
Hyacinth Alia is a dangerous man! He seeks to destroy anyone whom he perceives to be standing on his way to achieving his aim, and he gives no damn about the consequences. He doesn’t mind bringing down the church, the very institution that gave him all that he boasts of today!
When Bishop Wilfred Anagbe of Makurdi Diocese was inundated with petitions from women whom Alia had illicit relationships with while he was in charge of the church at Anum, opposite Benue State University main gate and the bishop had no other choice than to suspend him and eventually redeploy him, Alia whipped up a clannish sentiment against Anagbe accusing the bishop of hating him because he is Kparev and not a Minda man. Such a wicked and dangerous thing to say about your superior!
Flip to his suspension by the Bishop of Gboko Diocese, William Avenya when he joined politics against the doctrine of the church. The desperate priest went to town telling people that the bishop had rather written to him granting him permission to go and contest election to save the state. Gullible people again believed him. How he gets away with such blatant lies is a subject that needs to be studied. Voodoo must be at work surely. I understand that his special adviser on voodoo matters is one Ternenge from Kwande who controls his movement and directs the governor on who to meet, where to go and what to say at any given moment. Ternenge boasted with close friends about the evil things they did including human sacrifices to make Alia become the governor. The audio clips of his boastful utterances are still on the internet.
Now back to Alia’s needless fights with those who helped him. The man is trying to destroy the party that gave him the platform to contest the 2023 election. He has done everything to ruin the political careers of the stakeholders who worked day and night to ensure his victory. Alia sacked the Secretary to the State Government, Professor Joseph Alakali and only a few days ago asked the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Fidelis Mnyim to resign (another word for sack).
Alia has a disturbing aversion to transparency and accountability. He is the sole administrator of Benue State. He has sidelined the State House of Assembly, abandoned the State Executive Council as well as the State Security Council. Due process and the rule of law do not exist in Alia’s vocabulary. He directly writes letters to bank managers instructing them to pay contractors after he has unilaterally negotiated contract terms with them and gotten his big chunk of the deals.
Alia has been accused by whistleblowers of embezzling billions of Benue’s money since he came on board. The governor sits comfortably on local government allocations and only pays them peanuts for salaries. That is why he fought against the grant of financial autonomy to the local governments.
Those who do not know governor Alia enough were surprised to hear him come out to deny any knowledge of the suit challenging the establishment of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, (EFCC). Only a man in whose veins falsehood resides can tell such a barefaced lie.
Other governors are said to be shocked on hearing that their Benue counterpart has come out to deny giving approval that the state be joined in the suit against EFCC. Information has it that during the Nigerian Governors’ Forum meeting, Alia was the one who seconded the motion to challenge the legality of the anti corruption commission at the Supreme Court.
Benue people have hired a chronic liar, a captain of deception and a highly vindictive person as governor. He is ready to destroy even the very foundations of the state, if he can’t get his way through anything. Hyacinth Alia is a bad man!
Dr Awunah writes from Durumi, Abuja
