Group laments Gov Alia’s alleged rejection of their son as commissioner-nominee

From Scholastica Onyeka, Makurdi

A group called Tombo Coalition in Benue State has kicked against the manner in which the state governor, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia, allegedly rejected their commissioner nominee.

They group, in a statement signed by the leader, Elder Saawuan Tyokyaa, and made available to newsmen in Makurdi on Tuesday, alleged that their son, Dr. Kaalu Akerkpev, from the Mbaya Council Ward, Buruku Local Government Area, was nominated as the Commissioner of Health but was turned down for another candidate.

Describing his rejection as historical injustice, the group said Governor Alia’s “audacious rejection” of their son has altered the principle of rotation within it’s immediate locality.

The group observed that since the dawning of democratic rule in 1999, an indelible pattern has persisted where commissioners from the Tombo clan have been exclusively drawn from the Mbaatikyaa and Mbakyongo council wards.

Tyokyaa noted that since the present political dispensation, there was a pattern of rotating political appointments lamenting that the arrangement has been abandoned by the present administration.

He said the Tombo people, who were hopeful of Alia’s leadership now feel betrayed by the “skewed decisions”, saying Alia decision has delivered a painful blow to party principles of balanced distribution of roles.

They accused Governor Alia of showing favoritism towards the Mbaatikyaa clan cautioning that such act has capacity to inject a corrosive bias into the heart of governance, and may cause an affront to the unity and shared responsibility that form the core of APC’s values, or ignited flames of estrangement and resentment among the marginalised members of the Mbaya clan.

Insisting it was an injustice, the Tombo Coalition called on the Governor to clean his name by righting this wrong in fulfillment of his promise to do away with all the injustices perpetrated on the people of the state in the past.