By Chiangi Avese, Makurdi
Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia has called on Benue indigenes in the Diaspora to collaborate with his administration to develop Benue State and make it a better place for all.
The governor made the call on Sunday, during a zoom interface with the Benue Diaspora, put together by both the Mutual Union of Tiv in America (MUTA) and the Idoma Association in the United States of America (USA), to give them firsthand information on the present administration’s general policy direction, security initiatives as well as the government’s drive in sectors such as agriculture, Mining, education, health, Banking and Finance as well as physical and digital infrastructure.
Governor Alia who informed them that he was on a working visit to the United States to harness the power of collaboration and partnerships to drive positive change and sustainable development in Benue, also informed them that together with some Northern Governors, they met with Amina Mohammed, the Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations, where the agenda of the meeting was centered on tackling insecurity, boosting agriculture, addressing unemployment and enhancing training opportunities for the people of the various states.
He thanked the Benue people in diaspora for their support to him during and after the campaigns, saying he appreciates them for being good ambassadors in foreign lands; an act he said, is promoting the image of Benue as a state and Nigeria as a country.
Governor Alia explained that before his assumption of office as the governor, vital ingredients of good governance such as transparency, accountability, and deliverability were abandoned in the previous years, with the last 8 years being the worst.
“We met things on May 29th, 2023, in a very terrible and deplorable state. The civil service was dysfunctional. People were no longer going to work; with most of the local government headquarters overtaken by bushes, and hardly people were going there to work and it went all through the entire system.
The workers were not paid their salaries and everybody stopped working. Pensioners were dying on a daily basis for they had no funds to get drugs, literary. all the companies that the state had owned became moribund. And in a number of efforts in trying to pull off the puzzle, the present administration discovered that there were litigations on those companies and all of that.”
He said the government has put in place quite a number of efforts to salvage the sorry situation, beginning with the payment of salaries, compelling the civil servants to now show commitment to work.
According to the governor, “the moribund companies such as Taraku Mills, the discoveries there were deeper than meet the eye but the government is trying to untie the hook, with investment and partnership being sought for them to be revived including the Cement Factory in Igumale”.
“My administration has granted autonomy to the Judiciary, legislature and is ready to support and implement full autonomy for the local government system, the government is still monitoring the Local Government system to be sure the right thing is done”.
On Agriculture in the State, Governor Alia said, plans are in place to introduced mechanized systems of farming and the state is looking for investors.
“We need to increase our yields; we need to increase the farms. And we cannot do all these without proper mechanization of the sector. We are trying to make some arrangements with certain companies to come into Benue and invest. We are trying to see if we can get some assembly plant for tractors so that they can come into the state and make something for our benefit”
He said initiatives such as Agricultural Development Corporation (ADC), Benue Tractor Hiring Agency (BENTA), are being considered, adding that post-harvest wastages will be curtailed, giving more value to the farmers for their products, especially now that the government is working on rural roads to enable the farmers transport their farm produce to the markets.
Gov. Alia said, “although insecurity is affecting Benue from fully expressing its agricultural potentials, the insecurity issue will be addressed sooner, especially as it is the hope of the government to raise the state’s GDP through Agriculture, with farmers being encouraged to form cooperatives to enable them access farm inputs and other necessary things that will improve their yields”.
