Shie Kuma: Extrapolating The Arrival Of The Widely Extolled Intervention In Benue Leadership

(An Open Letter to the Benue State Governor-Elect, Rev. Fr. Dr Hyacinth Iormem Alia)

I heartily congratulate you on your overwhelming election as the governor of our dear state. God has indeed listened to the prayers and cries of your people by choosing you as His tool to emancipate the people of Benue State. Father, there is much to tell you but I will not be bordering you with so many issues, I have outlined the 10 most important issues to me here for your consideration. Shie Kuma!!!

Benue State is a child of grace. God created the state using the military administration headed by the Late General Murtala Muhammed on the 3rd of February 1976 and blessed it with everything life desires. A greater portion of the Benue land is predominantly plain, fertile and arable. The State is located within the lower River Benue Trough in the Middle Belt Region of Nigeria, occupying a landmass of 33,955 square kilometres. Aligning with the Köppen Climate Classification, Benue State lies within the tropical savannah climate, experiencing two distinct climatic seasons; the wet season which lasts from April to October, with annual rainfall ranging from 1000 to 1500mm; and the dry season which begins in November and ends in March. Following these wonderful climatic conditions, the annual temperatures in Benue State fluctuate between 210C to 370C, while the Southeastern part of the State adjoining the Obudu-Cameroon mountain range has cooler climatic conditions similar to those of Jos Plateau.

The above is in addition to other favourable environmental provisions such as the vegetation and drainage systems. There are two main vegetation belts in Benue State; the riparian vegetation along the banks of streams and rivers, and the savannah which is characterized by tall grasses dotted with a variety of important trees. The presence of this rich vegetation belt has over the years supported the Benue people in diverse ways. Ranging from its ability to retain soil nutrients for agricultural activities as well as providing wood for furniture and preventing soil erosion etc. Rivers Benue and Katsina Ala together with their tributaries water the Benue land and make it arable. These environmental and climatic conditions also support the plantation of several economic trees including mangos, arranges, guavas, cashew and kola nut tree among others.

God has also blessed Benue State with several natural resources, including large deposits of limestone, salt, lead/zinc, coal, clay, barite, gemstone, gypsum, iron ore, marble and other precious stones etc. There is also a high indication that the Benue land is home to a large deposit of crude oil. The discovery of an oil well in Obi/Keana in Nasarawa State points to one thing. If the search for this discovery was not been politically influenced, much crude oil deposits would have been discovered in Benue State too. This is because environmental analysis on the location where this oil well is discovered favours Benue State more since Benue is predominantly situated within the valley in which the oil well is found. However, we hope that with your emergence as the governor of our dear state, much more favour will come to Benue following your cordial relationship with the authorities at the centre.

Now, with all these fascinating environmental provisions and wonderful natural resources, Benue State has continued to be a poor state, waiting for the Federal Government's monthly allocation on yearly basis. There is a total absence of human capital development. Our parents who work very hard on the farms have continued to suffer from one bad policy of the government to another. We prayed to God and today God has given us one of His own in you. There is much to do, and they're many expectations of you too. In this letter, I have discussed extensively some of the issues preventing the progress and development of Benue State and have made some important suggestions for your consideration.

Leadership Deficit
No one needs to be informed of the leadership deficit in Benue State. Since the return of the fourth republic in Nigeria, Benue has had it quite rough in terms of leadership. I will not be calling names and pointing fingers at any of our past or present leaders because the aim of this write-up is not to assign blames but to chat a way forward.

However, there is a lack of basic leadership qualities in our recent past leaders. It seems that most of our leaders don't apply a deliberate approach to governance in the state. Planning and indeed strategic planning has been absent completely. The successive governments in Benue State seem to have been implementing decisions that are largely politically motivated. Politics has been the major influencer of many important decisions by leaders of the state. Decisions that are politically influenced usually lack leadership qualities. A good leader should act with a reasonable measure of integrity, self-awareness, courage, respect, empathy, and gratitude. Whereas, Benue leaders have over time shown a regrettable display of arrogance, impunity, power drunkenness and lack of strategic leadership style in the state.

This has explained why there is a huge infrastructural deficit, bad road networks, deteriorated schools, collapsed institutions and over-blotted corruption. Huge salaries and pension arrears are owed to innocent and hardworking Benueans. Even in the Holy Scriptures, God states clearly in 1 Timothy 5:18 that “The worker is worthy of his wages", and that he deserves fair compensation. Why then should a leader refuse to pay workers the worth of their wages? Isn't this arrogance and a show of recklessness? Your answer is as good as mine.

YES FATHER!!! I believe your case will be different. You must realise and recognise leadership as a deliberate thing that happens through processes but not just politically motivated. You have people like my grandmother in the village who don't even understand the meaning of politics. She was happy to vote for you and stand boldly in the mixt of women to recommend you. She is just one case among millions of Benue people, so if you put politics at the forefront of your leadership what do you think will benefit these poor people? Therefore, you have to be deliberate in bringingthe desired change in Benue State. Late Governor Aper Aku was a strategic leader; he laid down a deliberate and conscious plan for the state and also started a coordinated implementation of the plan. Successive administrations in Benue have denigrated and abandoned this plan. You have to consciously return the state to the initial plan.

Politics of Bitterness
Politics and governance are two different but interrelated terms; while politics refers to the methodology and activities associated with running a government, governance is the process or the power of decision-making and administration of a country or state at a given time. This means that politics is the methodologyand governance is the power for decision-making. Therefore, the room for politics is different from the room meant for governance. Once this is not well understood, their bond be a leadership deficit.

Further, in all of these, there is an important activity referred to as elections. This is equally a different phenomenon to both politics and governance. Though interrelated, each has a definite role in every government. Unlike politics and governance, an election refers to a formal and organized choice by a vote of a person for a political office or other positions. Elections are done only at an appointed time for the sole purpose of selecting leaders. Associated with elections arepolitical campaigns which are most of the time embedded with fowl approaches and actions. If not carefully handled, may create enmity and hatred among members of political parties and followers of leadership aspirants. I believe this issue has been at the forefront of the causes of politics of bitterness in Benue State.

Politics of bitterness affected the administration of Senator George Akume, Senator Gabriel Suswam and now Dr Samuel Ortom. There has been a lack of unity among Benue leaders, especially where their personal interests are at stake. The willingness to come together and chat the way forward for the state after elections have been a big problem among our leaders. In most cases, their supporters become very aggressive and wield, intimidating innocent people at all corners of the state and making life unbearable for members of the opposition parties and patriotic citizens of the state who ask any question about important issues regarding the governance process in Benue. This is undemocratic and should be discouraged by every patriotic citizen in the state.

The time has come to put an end to the madness of carrying guns and other dangerous weapons and searching for fellow brothers and sisters to kill. The time has come to stop burning down houses built by our brothers and sister through hard work because of politics. This is indeed not the right time to compose uncultured songs and insult past leaders in the state. Even if Samuel Ortom has mismanaged the state resources, there is the right process to channel and get these issues addressed. The time on our hands now is meant for what Late Wantaregh Paul Iorpuu Unongo termed "Where do we go from here". No one should waste your time with such issues, a child is not born intentionally to fight his parent's dispute with other people; he may choose to do so if that makes sense to him later in his life. So give your administration a life before interrogating political issues if it's necessary.

YES FATHER!!! We will not advise you to fight anyone’s political dispute. The only dispute we approve of your fight is the elimination of the unfortunate killings, hunger and poverty in Benue. We are ready to be your foot soldiers in fighting poverty, bad governance and corruption in our dear state.

Agriculture
As explained above, Benue State has one of the best soil types in Nigeria if not the very best. This is in addition to the fact that a major portion of the Benue land is plain soil which has the capacity to support agricultural activities. This fact is well understood by all citizens of the state as they have since been cultivating varieties of crops for consumption and economic well-being. Benue people have been amenable to practising both cereal and tuber cropping. They cultivate cereals such as bulrush millet (Pennisetum), rice (Oryza sativa), guinea corn (sorghum spp.), green pea (Pisum sativum), pearl millet (Pennisetum spp), soya beans (Glycine max), beniseed (Sasamum indicum) and maize (Zea mays) among others. And tuber crops like yam (Discorea rotundata),cassava (Manihot spp), cocoyam (Colocasiaesculentum), sweet potatoes (Ipomea batata) and groundnut (Arachis hypogea) etcetera. Yam seems however to be the most predominant crop grown, and the leading specie is Discorea rotundata (white yam).

Benue State is known all over the world as the food basket of the nation Nigeria. Different fruit trees are also grown in the state, including varieties of mango, orange, guava, cashew and kola nut among others. These fruit trees produce assorted fruits season after season. Most times these fruits are sold at cheap prices but on many occasions, they get spoiled and are thrown away because of a lack of sales.

Source: https://tribuneonlineng.com/the-wasting-fruits-of-benue/

I shed tears when I visited the tomatoes market in Gboko in 2019 and saw our mothers frustrated with hundreds of baskets of tomatoes without buyers. Many were already spoiled while other sellers were seen screening the bad ones from the manageable ones. This is very sad, what happens to the processing of these tomatoes to paste? The Benue State government can do this and also make it another source of revenue for the state while also cushioning the suffering of farmers in Benue. YES FATHER!!! This is what we want you to do for the Benue people.

Wasted tomatoes
All citizens of Benue State cultivate yam; the Tiv, Idoma, Igede and so on. The new administration should look into ways of processing these farm produce. It makes no economic sense that the food basket of the nation does not process any food. Farm produce is sold immediately after they are harvested. The buyers take them away, process them and return them for sale to the cultivators. Go into provision shops in Benue State, you will be surprised to see bottles of mango and orange juice, tomato paste, yam flour, cassava flour and so on. What a shame…. YES FATHER!!! We wait on you.

Burnt yam
Education
A society, state or nation which does not prioritise the education of its citizens is breeding thieves, bandits and terrorists. This is already happening in Nigeria today. Benue State is not exceptional in this and is getting evenworse by each day. Benue educational sector is a joke in itself. I personally visited a number of primary schools in the state last year and found that there are practically no teachers to teach our children. Some of the schools had one teacher which was the head teacher. Some of these head teachers recruited their own teachers through parent-teacher association (P.T.A.) support funds. I felt very bad when I saw in so many cases students of different levels combined in one class. Imagine that primary one and two, three and four, five and six are combined and taught the same thing in a single class. How do they get promoted? What kind of system is that? Such a shame…..

Secondary schools are not left out. Visit a secondary school in any local government area outside Makurdi and you will be shocked to your born marrow. There are no teachers; those teaching in Benue State-owned schools are P.T.A. supported teachers. YES FATHER!!! We wait on you.

What about higher institutions of learning in the state? Are they adequately staffed? A big no. Visit the Akawe Torkula Polytechnic, Benue State Polytechnic, Akperan Orshi Polytechnic, College of Education Katsin-Ala and Oju and even the Benue State University. They are well understaffed. This means that we cannot waste time discussing curriculum issues because those to implement such curriculums are not there. When I imagine that university degrees are awarded in Nigerian languages like the Ibibio and Efik I wonder about the type of education going on in Benue that no indigenous language is taught in any higher institution in the state. What does it take to develop a programme for a degree in Tiv or Idoma language at BSU? I see education in the state retrogressing. There are no indications of progress at all. This has to change, if we have a university, we should be able to use it for the promotion and preservation of our cultural identity and values. YES FATHER!!!

Industries
YES FATHER!!! I heard you in one of your speeches where you said that even if it has been made spiritually that Benue State should not own and operate factories, you will change the status quo. I must admit that I was very happy to hear this. Pardon me to mention that Samuel Ortom pretended at the beginning of his administration to have intended to solve this problem. He dedicated a reasonable period to visiting existing factories in the state that were not functioning. He promised to revamp all of them in record time but here are we less than two months to the end of his second tenure as governor of the state with nothing to show for this. I believed him when he said he was going to revamp them. Today, I am here blaming myself to have believed in him. But I want to once again believe in you on this.

YES FATHER!!! I strongly believe that you will not leave our mothers to cry in the markets with rotten tomatoes and pepper. You will not allow the yam produced by our brothers and sisters through hard labour to be left in unprotected barns and get burnt by enemies of the state. I believe that you will not allow our brothers and sisters to continue selling their oranges and mangos at cheap prices to strangers. I believe that you are going to give value to our farm produce and activate the exportation of processed farm produce from Benue State into other states in Nigeria and to other countries of the world.

Human Capital Development
Human capital development has become a mirage in Benue State. Today, the only surviving evidence of human capital development is traced to the administration of the Late Governor Aper Aku. Aku invested very wisely in human capital development. This is because Aku was deliberate with governance in Benue State. He deployed a massive chunk of the state's resources in funding scholarships. Benue indigenes, irrespective of tribe or creed, picked up graduate scholarships on demand. If you visit countries in Europe and America you will be surprised at the number of Benue people who resides and work there, not to mention those at home. I tell you that the majority of these people were sponsored through the Aku scholarship.

The former governor of Kano State, Engineer Rabiu Musa Kwankwaso adopted this strategy when he gave scholarships to thousands of Kano State citizens to study in universities within and outside Nigeria. Today, many of these beneficiaries are contributing to the economic development of Kano State in particular and Nigeria in general. After completing my first and second degrees at Ahmadu Bello University Zaria without a single bursary from the Benue State Scholarship Board, I decided to visit the Board in 2022 only to find that they are using the place strictly for political point scoring. The government is not interested in supporting Benue State students. It is more painful when you see other states bring bursaries to their students in their various schools. Some of my coursemates used to collect amounts that were far more than their university school fees as a bursary. YES FATHER!!! Our students are going to smile when you take over the affairs of the state.

Tourism
Tourism as an industry is dynamic and competitive and is recognized widely as one of the world's largest growing industries. According to the Travel Industry Association (TIA), tourism accounts for $740 billion in direct travel expenditures by both domestic and international travellers. International travellers to the United States of America spend $107.9 billion every year. Outside the U.S.A., Americans spend $99.6 billion on tourism, creating an $8.3 billion U.S.A. trade surplus in the sector. Tourism provides $110 billion in tax revenue for Federal, State, and Local Governments. In terms of direct spending by residents and international travellers, the TIA estimates that $2 billion is spent in the U.S.A per day on travel-related items. The average overseas visitor to the U.S.A. spends $1,647, with an average trip duration of five to six nights. The tourism industry is one of America’s largest employers of labour, providing 7.9 million jobs and spending $178 billion in direct travel-related payrolls.

Benue State has a wide range of tourist attractions. This ranges from numerous archaeological sites on hills such as Ikyogen, Ibinda, Bako, Kpe, Ngokugh, Akovurwo, Ikyo, Akoo, Dajo, and Ushongo etc. to other cultural and natural attractions like the Tor Tiv Palace in Gboko, Anwase-Abande Ranges, Ikwe Holiday Resort, rain forests, waterfalls, Montane Games Reserve, Sacred Ipinu- Igede, Dajo Pottery, Makurdi among many others. Most of these tourist attractions are not developed. Even the few that have seen some levels of development arepresently undergoing severe levels of deterioration due to negligence.

As presented above, the tourism industry is now rated as one of the best-growing sectors globally, and its leading aspect is cultural tourism. There have been several archaeological investigations that have exposed a lot of cultural material remains of the ancient Benue people. Most of these sites are found on hilltops which ought to have been developed for tourism purposes. Countries such as Israel, Malaysia, Singapore, UAE, China, USA, Britain, France, South Africa, Uganda, and Kenya are all tourist destinations with cultural tourism constituting a large chunk of their tourism attractions.

The Benue State Government through YES FATHER can tap into this idea to boost tourism in the state and improve the economy of the state. This is not difficult to achieve as most of our leaders have an idea of how to develop these tourist attractions and have seen similar developments in Israel and UAE where they go for pilgrimages. The tourism sector alone has the potential of giving Benue State as much as the FG allocation if developed and managed appropriately.

Job Creation
Every point discussed above has job creation potential. Whether it is agricultural development, education, industries, human capital development or the tourism industry, job creation is silently echoing in all of them. Apart from these, there is still much need to create more jobs through other means. For emphasis sake, the tradition where Benue State governor always recruits workers in the state at the tail end of their administration only for the incoming administration to come and sack such staff is not acceptable. Former Governor Suswam did this kind of recruitment only for Governor Ortom to assume office and sack the beneficiaries. Today, though he condemned bitterly the die minute recruitment by Suswam, he is also doing the same. He has employed many people without due process. However, I don't want the YES FATHER administration to assume office and sack these workers. YES FATHER!!! Kindly allow these workers to stay in the service. What is important is whether they are qualified to hold such positions or not. Are they qualified? Are they Benue citizens? Do those vacancies truly exist? If the answer to these questions is YES, then take it that your brothers and sisters have been employed. I believe their employment has reduced some burden on you as they have reduced the percentage of unemployment in the state which you would have come to face.

Inter-State Relations
It is no longer a hidden fact that Benue people are being killed by enemies who enter the state through the neighbouring state. I believe that there is a need to have good inter-state relations with our neighbouring states to avoid these unfortunate acts( https://businessday.ng/uncategorized/article/benue-taraba-border-crisis-3-feared-dead-in-renewed-attack-on-tiv-by-suspected-jukun-militia ). There have been several security reports that hoodlums come through Nasarawa and Taraba borders to attack communities in the state and run back into these states ( https://www.vanguardngr.com/2023/02/benue-leaders-raise-alarm-over-impending-attacks-by-armed-herders/ ). Kindly look into this problem as soon as you assume office, study them thoroughly and act appropriately after an adequate understanding of the issues involved.

Yes Father or No Father?
As a traditional Roman Catholic person, I know the meaning of yes Father in its true sense. However, now that it has become a political slogan, YES FATHER has now assumed the status of a leadership ideology and movement. This means that YES FATHER is going to be keenly monitored and criticised. All of us may be saying yes Father today, but if what is delivered to us is not exactly what we ordered, NO FATHER will immediately replace YES FATHER. Everyone is frustrated, is no longer business as usual. We are also aware that some people are already parading themselves in the state as owners of the YES FATHER victory. Some have gone ahead to claim that their hard work made it possible. Please, Father, don't allow these people to infiltrate your administration and destroy your plan for the Benuepeople. Party and elections have come and gone, we now have winners and losers, and the next is leadership. Assemble your cabinet based on competence, not party affiliation. There are those who don't belong to any political party but can give the state the best of service, give them a chance.

I, therefore, pray that God should bless the Benue people through your administration. May God supply the best ideas to you and those that will be working with you to move our state forward. May God keep you in good health of mind, body and spirit to pilot the affairs of the state faithfully and sincerely through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Terngu Sylvanus Nomishan
Department of Archaeology and Museum Studies,
Federal University Lokoja, Kogi State, Nigeria
Email: [email protected]
Phone: 08051065128