GOV ALIA’S DECISION TO BUILD GIANT STATUES OF HIMSELF IN MAKURDI

.…A self-glorifying waste of Benue resources

By Aondona Isaka Ornguga

I saw a social media post made yesterday by Raphael Akume, who is a Senior Special Assistant on Media to Governor Hyacinth Alia, announcing that his principal plans to erect a giant statue of himself at major junctions in Makurdi, the state capital. I had earlier seen similar social media posts on the issue but didn’t want to believe them until I saw the announcement by the governor’s media, meaning that the news is authentic.

This reported decision by Governor Alia to erect giant statues of himself at popular junctions in Makurdi using public resources is totally unacceptable and condemnable. Such a move constitutes a grave deviation from the public interest and a betrayal of the trust placed in him by the people of Benue State.

This action also amounts to a waste of public resources. Building monumental statues and renaming public assets after the governor requires substantial financial spending. In a context of budgetary strain and competing needs in sectors like education, healthcare, security, infrastructure, and social welfare, allocating public funds to self-aggrandizement projects as Governor Alia is reportedly doing amounts to allocative inefficiency. The move is tantamount to self-adulation and self-glorification.

Resources of Benue State ought to be directed toward tangible developmental projects that uplift the lives of the people, rather than personal vanity projects that yield no durable social returns. The construction of a pervasive propaganda apparatus of self-promotion will certainly undermine the principle of servant leadership expected of the governor. Governance should be anchored on accountability, transparency, and service to the people, not in the cultivation of a cult of personality.

In the history of Benue, no governor of the state, (from the time of Governor Aper Aku through the military regimes to Alia’s predecessor Governor Samuel Ortom), has named public assets after himself while in office. Successors usually name assets in honour of past leaders or notable public figures. Self-naming of public assets by a sitting governor, as in the case of Alia, is a departure from the established norms.

An example of this new trend in Benue under Governor Alia is the naming of the Quality Assurance building, which was named “Fr Alia Quality House.” The same was done at the drug collection centre complex of the Pharmacy department, Benue State University Teaching Hospital Makurdi. The building too is named Fr Alia Complex.

This move risks normalizing autocratic or populist branding, where public spaces are co-opted for the governor’s personal branding rather than for shared civic spaces.

The implication of renaming public institutions and assets after Governor Alia is that state resources are now personal property or tools for entrenched self-promotion, weakening the social contract and democratic legitimacy which the governor entered with the people when he was elected.

Public leadership is a trust that demands humility, accountability, and a steadfast focus on advancing the common good.

Lastly, let me remind Akume Raphael that his intention to mock the immediate past Governor of Benue State, Chief Samuel Ortom, has failed. Chief Ortom never named even one state asset after him while he was in office. Instead, he built an uncountable number of legacy projects including a long kilometers of roads in Makurdi, Gboko, Otukpo, and other towns, with many other infrastructures, and named them after past leaders of the state. The present government needs to take a cue from Chief Ortom and desist from self-glorifying ventures.

The Alia administration should focus on providing answers to questions bordering on zero transparency and accountability in the face of increased federal allocations to the state, as a result of fuel subsidy removal.

Benue people expect the governor to channel the huge resources at his disposal to fulfilling his campaign promises such as the promise to clear the arrears of salaries, pension and gratuities, which President Bola Tinubu recently confirmed during a town hall meeting in Makurdi that he has given state governors so much money that they have no reason not to pay salaries and pensions or even think of borrowing before paying, unlike during the previous administration when 28 states were not able to pay salaries and pensions.
Every other state governor under the Tinubu era has since cleared the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities.

Governor Alia also promised to return the internally displaced people to their ancestral homes within his first 100 days in office, but maybe it is not yet 100 days since he assumed office.

The time for politicking has passed; it is now time for governance, and Alia has enough funds to transform the state. The cost of the statue the governor’s media aide reported that his principal is planning to build of himself can be used to clear the arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities or even used for building of roads.

Prince Ornguga is a former Special Assistant to the Benue State Governor