Comrade Daniel Onjeh, Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Benue South Senatorial District in the 2023 General Elections, has condemned in strong terms the invitation extended to some aides of the Benue State Governor, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, by the House of Representatives Committee on Public Petitions, over the alleged misappropriation of N20 billion Benue local government funds, describing it as a mere extension of their mischievous scheme to discredit Governor Alia.

In a press release issued today, Onjeh accused the members of the Benue State National Assembly Caucus of orchestrating the invitation as part of a larger plot to disparage and distract the people-oriented leadership of Governor Alia. He said the Benue NASS Caucus was only amplifying the ululations of disgruntled stakeholders in the state, who are finding it difficult to accept and adjust to the new order of governance in Benue State, characterised by the judicious utilization of the state’s statutory allocations and revenues as introduced by the Rev. Fr. Alia Administration, against the old order of sharing monthly allocations amongst the elites and stakeholders.

“Fr. Alia has introduced a total departure from the old order of sharing monthly allocations amongst stakeholders. We know exactly what they are feeling, but they just have to accept and endure it because Fr. Alia is adopting the bottom-top approach to governance. The elites and stakeholders have had their fair share in the past; Fr. Alia is now determined to offer a new lease of life to the long-neglected Benue masses. That’s why he can now pay salaries, pensions and gratuities regularly in the state

Meanwhile, the projects that the governor’s detractors are making so much fuss over all have time lags. It’s not like when a government policy or project is pronounced and commissioned, it must be fully implemented on the same day, even though it might have officially commenced. So, because these elites are no longer receiving monthly largesses from the state government, and they are not seeing some projects yet on the ground, they are quick to erroneously conclude that the funds earmarked for the projects have been misappropriated by the state government. Why are they in such a hurry, after all, Fr. Alia has actually just started the re-engineering of Benue,” stated Onjeh.

Furthermore, Onjeh highlighted the previous attempt by the senate to smear the governor through false accusations of dissolving democratically elected local government council officials.

“The Benue APC National Assembly Caucus,” Onjeh stated, “had not concealed its plot to discredit Governor Alia for whatever they hoped to achieve. For months now, they have embarked on a coordinated relentless attack on the governor. They used his appointment of caretaker committee chairmen and councillors for the 23 local government areas in Benue State as an excuse to launch their smear and slander campaign against the governor.”

Comrade Onjeh further opined that the caucus was working in cahoots with a PDP Senator (Sen. Abba Moro) to assail the governor and discredit his administration. To test the waters, asserted Onjeh, Sen. Moro had taken the lead and sponsored a Motion laced with partisan and self-serving motives in the Senate, titled, “Urgent Need to Halt the Erosion of Democracy: The Dissolution of Elected Councils in Benue State,” which, fortunately, died on arrival for lack of merit. “Nobody has heard of the Motion again because senators eventually came to terms with the reality surrounding it,” stated Onjeh.

In countering Sen. Moro’s ill-fated Motion, Onjeh stressed that in the first place, Governor Alia did not dissolve any democratically elected LG Executive; but it was the Benue State House of Assembly that acted within the purview of its powers by recommending the suspension of the elected local government executives found complicit in financial impropriety and mismanagement. The Governor only complied by implementing the recommendation.

Furthermore, Onjeh stressed, that Sen. Moro’s call for the withholding of Benue State LG funds was based on the flawed premise that the state government wrongfully dissolved elected LG Executives. “Riding on this false premise, Sen. Moro had mischievously invited the National Assembly to arrogate powers it did not possess; as constitutionally, the State House of Assembly is the only body charged with the responsibility of regulating the activities of the local governments in the state,” noted Onjeh.

The APC chieftain opined that until Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution is amended to grant full financial and administrative autonomy to the LGAs, anything done to the contrary by the National Assembly will be mere window dressing.

“At this point, granting LGAs full autonomy is what the lawmakers should dissipate their energy on, if they are sincere. But as it is now, everything concerning LGAs is still under the State Houses of Assembly’s purview.”

Comrade Onjeh stated that some of the caucus’s members have purportedly used a faceless organization to write a petition against the Benue State Government, accusing it of misappropriating N20 billion. However, Hon. Dr Denis Akura, the Special Adviser to the Executive Governor of Benue State on the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, debunked these spurious claims. “Hon. Akura has made it public that Governor Alia did not at any time, direct him to monitor the diversion of N20 billion of federal allocation aggregated to the state’s LGAs. Offering further clarification, Hon. Akura asserted that he was not at the helm of affairs of the bureau from June 23 – October 2, 2023, the period within which the petitioners claimed the phantom diversion of public funds was perpetrated in the bureau,” stated Onjeh.

According to Onjeh, Hon. Akura further stated that in Benue State, the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs no longer controls the federal allocation or any funds of the local government areas, as quasi-financial autonomy has since been granted to the local governments, where their aggregated federal allocation goes directly to each of their accounts.

“Hon. Akura had also clarified that the Benue State Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, as mandated by Governor Alia, only supervises, monitors and coordinates the affairs of the 23 local government areas through her Directorate of Monitoring and Inspection. Moreover, to ensure transparency, the designated administrative framework has also directed all the local government area Caretaker Committee Chairmen to, as a matter of compulsion, credit their IGR into the local government area accounts before transferring the same into the expenditures account to spend on driving their policies, programmes and projects. All these decisions are deliberated upon and approved in the monthly Local Government Joint Account meetings.

“The same administrative framework, Hon. Akura explained, had restored normalcy in the regular payment of local government staff salaries, imprest, pensions and gratuities; upfront payment of fresh retirees’ entitlements on or before the 25th of every month, with immediate enrollment on the pension payroll,” stated Onjeh.

From the foregoing, Com. Onjeh submits it is obvious that the petition for the diversion of N20 billion Benue LG funds was not motivated by the desire to unearth the truth about the Benue State Government’s utilization of public funds, but a means to an end, a purpose-built vehicle meant to disparage and embarrass the Alia administration.

“The petition is baseless and without substance. One would wonder where this faceless organization was when the previous PDP government in Benue State led by Mr. Samuel Ortom, plundered the state’s coffers dry with the highest level of impunity, and bequeathed to the state a huge salary arrears, especially in the LGAs. Yet, they have the temerity to cast aspersions on an administration that regularly pays salaries. No antigraft agency worth its salt would take the House of Reps seriously on this issue”

Expounding further on the matter, Comrade Onjeh stated that having ineffectually sent petitions to the EFCC and the ICPC through a proxy as widely believed, the Benue National Assembly Caucus, in its desperation to show that it is the entity behind the bogus petition, hurriedly manufactured a letter inviting Hon. Dr. Denis Akura and some of Governor Alia’s aides, to the House of Representatives to answer questions on the baseless allegation of misappropriation of N20 billion. That, according to Onjeh, is akin to a judge presiding over a case in which he is the complainant.

“I had a similar experience when I was the Chairman of the Governing Board of PRODA, Enugu. The lawmaker that the Board had accused of writing to the agency’s DG demanding payment for a contract that had not been awarded when the procurement process for the fiscal year had not even commenced at the agency, was one of those who contrived a committee of enquiry into the crisis rocking PRODA at the time. He wormed his way into the committee and invited me to appear before it. During the committee proceedings, the lawmaker made strenuous efforts to prevent me from speaking, afraid I might reveal his fraudulence to the world. He didn’t even want me to utter a single word in the National Assembly. He was actually being a judge in his own case”.

Onjeh noted that in a similar vein, the Benue State National Assembly Caucus has a vested interest in the inquisition which it is striving to drag Hon. Dr. Dennis Akura and some of Governor Alia’s aides to Abuja to face.

Propounding reasons the caucus is at daggers drawn with Governor Alia, Comrade Onjeh submits that its members’ failure to influence the appointment of caretaker chairmen to run the state’s LGAs had turned
them into sour grapes, and as livid as a third-degree burn. “That is why they have refused to allow the governor a moment’s rest from their incessant petulant vituperations, and not even bothered to hide their pique against him. Some of them had openly complained that they couldn’t reach him on the phone. They probably wanted to meet him and have a chance to impose their preferred candidates on him. But Governor Alia gave Benue State APC a free hand in the appointment of caretaker LG chairmen and councillors. He asked the party to nominate three candidates for the posts in each LGA, from which he picked and appointed one to the respective offices,” Comrade Onjeh stated.

Positing that Governor Alia has been fair enough, Onjeh stated that the governor gave the party a fair deal; however, the members of the Benue National Assembly Caucus preferred their nominees to be appointed to the respective LGA top seats. “Not having their way was the genesis of the current crisis, and they have not been able to disguise it. When they disparaged the state governor in a live press conference, they claimed that their grouse with him stemmed from the issue of the appointment of LGA caretaker committees. But their real intention was betrayed when they went personal, whining about how they were unable to access the governor, and how he does not pick up their phone calls, etc,” stated Onjeh.

Comrade Onjeh insisted that the Benue NASS caucus’s actions must be resisted at all costs. He maintained that Hon. Dr. Denis Akura had clarified the issues the faceless group raised, and that if they were not satisfied with his clarification, they should wait for the EFCC and ICPC to conclude their investigations, following the petition they submitted to the anticorruption bodies. “What they are attempting to do is the job of the State House of Assembly,” Onjeh opined. “The petitioners should write to tell the caucus that it is within the powers of the state legislature, not that of the National Assembly, to investigate and scrutinize LGA accounts. Whatever the Committee for Public Petitions does will be an exercise in futility, because their resolution will be a mere advisory to the executive, and in this case, the executive is the Benue State Government, not the Federal Government. The Committee cannot do anything more than that. Its actions will have no impact.”

Comrade Onjeh reiterated that the members of the Benue State National Assembly Caucus were the same people fingered in all evil machinations against Governor Alia. Their actions, he averred, suggest that they are behind the faceless organization that submitted the petition against the Benue State Government, and they might have been aware of the petition even before it surfaced.

“I once advised the Senate not to allow itself to be dragged into entertaining a partisan Motion or Bill that will bring it to disrepute,” stated Onjeh. “They heeded my advice, backtracked on the matter, and saved the collective image of the Senate. I therefore equally call on the House of Representatives to do the same thing, so that some members’ selfish interest will not embarrass the entire House, because absolutely nothing tangible will come out of their inquisition of the Benue State Government.”