Kogiflame
As we approach the much awaited 2023 general elections in our dear state, I write this article on behalf of those who cares about the present sordid state of our state taking into consideration the debilitating state of affairs presently and it’s implications for the future of our people.
Make no mistake about it, our state today is shamefully considered as the state mostly ranked in the country with signs of becoming a failed state.
I write this article concerned that as we approach the next general elections in the state, it is important that we the people conscientiously put our political and ethnic difference aside and for once tell ourselves the bitter truth ready to swallow it as the required bitter pills to salvage the state from it’s present decadent state.This article is in good faith mindful of our shared vision and wish for it’s progress.
Side by side the inspiring story of Benue leaders is the uninspiring story of it’s people.Benue state according to statistics from the National population commission has an estimated population of over 5million people with more than half of that figure living in abject poverty because of the absence for too long of the needed leadership resource which is a prerequisite for the growth and development of a state.
The state is recognised nationally as a rich agricultural region with fertile land and temperate weather conditions favourable for the cultivation of food and cash crops.Some of the crops grown are yams,rice,soyabeans,beniseed,Guinea corn,maize,millet,cassava among numerous species of fruits and vegetables.
Benue state was once the envy of it’s neighbours and the pride of it’s people.A state blessed beyond measure with dark loans of fertile land dissected through by fresh flowing river.It was an oasis in the Savannah, coupled with it’s human resources, unquestionable potentials and promise.So blessed was the state that it was tipped to feed the nation, a major hub of agriculture export to our neighbouring countries in West Africa and beyond.
Sadly, years on with the state’s slogan as the”food basket of the nation”sounds all but a mirage.The optimism that greeted it’s creation from the defunct Benue-Plateau state in 1976 fizzled out into the reality of under-development and poverty.
This becomes inevitable when successful administration’s in the state choose to trade sustainable development and self reliance for them send monthly share of the national cake.A phrase that has enjoyed patronage since Nigeria jettisoned agriculture and depend fully on revenue from the sale of crude oil.
It is therefore not surprising that the state sufers-lack of industries and poor infrastructure given birth to unemployment, poor enabling environment for business and zero economic growth and unpaid salaries.
The effect is obvious,a legion of politicians and other people at their mercy,a people accustomed to less and adapted to the mediocrity of just the basis of life, food, water (which is still scarce despite the proximity to River Benue), shelter, and strangely alcohol.
The challenges of our society is to build a state with strong institutions that would breed collective development and reverse the fortunes of the state.By so doing,we could look back and celebrate our progress as individuals and a collective and be proud of our progress as a state.
Benue in truth and reality is a secular state but it is predominantly a Christian state.It is the only state in the country to have produced a Catholic priest, Rev.Fr.Moses Adasu, as a democratically elected governor in the aborted third republic of 1991-1992..
Our Christian roots and upbringing has sadly truth be told,sadly made our leaders as they are today use the church of God and indeed the name of God as an opium to drag the sensibilities of the masses.We hold Thanksgiving services to God for these wicked rulers almost every Sunday in our churches.
We give rulers who promoted violence, impunity, and pervert justice front role seats all the time in churches and the worst of all we allow them trudge their filthy feet on the church alter to address the congregation, using the name of God in vain.
Our leaders insult God when they feign to dedicate the state to God without a desire to carry out his will with our connivance.In our state we now use the name of God to the extent that we coined it”in God we trust”as a state public policy.
Now, these are the reasons I feel and many do today that God is angry with us in the state.Our rulers misuse his name to their advantage and carry out the works of the devil.They have obviously on our behalf signed a pact with the devil and have sworn allegiance to him by promoting his fundamental virtues of injustice, unfairness, lies, stealing, killings, and instigating maiming and the sheddings of innocent bloods.
Our Lord and savior Jesus Christ she’d his blood on the cross already for our salvation BUT our leaders in Benue state have continued through direct and indirect acts to promote the sheddings of innocent bloods through acts of violence, promotion of thuggery, perpetrating injustices, indifference to herdsmens attacks through the promotion of injustices that have led to crisis et al.
Our rulers have lost their sense of Justice,and in the process losts God’s blessings as Psalms106vs3 says”blessed are they who observe justice,who do righteousness at all times”.
Our rulers in Benue state as exemplified by the leaders of the ruling party in the state today,have constantly exploited the calmness of the populace and have continuously subjected them to an endless state of dubious exploitation, economic strangulations(refusing to pay workers their dues and sharing the state allocations among themselves through direct heist, phantom contracts, that are inflated as depicted in SUBEB and other agencies.),social disharmony(promotion of hate among brethren and causing acrimony and bitterness by acts of injustices,and then political subjudications(denying the people their inalienable rights of free choice and participation in their governments via the instrumentality of impunity and impositions:
Our people have for so long been moaning and groaning,giving credence to the biblical injunction that”when the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice but when the wicked bears rule,the people mourns”-Proverbs29:2.
They have taken advantages of us for times in the past and the Lord frowns against that.He said in Leviticus25:17″Do not take advantage of each other,but fear your God”.To respect the laws of the system and act and live by faith in deed.
The future belongs to the righteous,while the wicked has no future.Wickedness comes with it the seeds of it’s own destructions.(Psalm10:4)Proverbs16:18)pride,tyranny and evil cannot last,but the righteous shall live by faith.(Habakkuk2:4).
In our state today we act as if we have put God on sabbatical.We denigrade,we confuse instead of convincing people.We bestide the place with so much arrogance and proclaim some funny sobriquet like”Oracle” Irremovable”on those who have pillage our destiny as a people.God is not happy with us because of the direct and or indirect pact our leaders have with the devil and constantly promotes his work in deeds.
We have to use the opportunity of the next election to clear the augean stable and bury our evil ways and that of our leaders and turn to God by using our conscience to vote our best foot forward so that God can through him heal our land and restore it’s glory.
The solution is succinctly captured in 2 chronicles7:14″If my people who called my name will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn away from their wicked ways,then I will hear from heaven and forgive their sins and heal their lands”.Lest our state.
: THE WAY FORWARD IS ELECTING PROFFESSOR BEM ANGWE TO RECLAIM OUR LAND AND RESTORE OUR PRIDE.
This land is ours,and we cling to it even as we see the blood in the lips of the vultures who prod and peck at our throats,so they can soak even more blood.
This land is ours,and we dance on it,to rythms old and new,with gracious limbs across generations,all bound together with the promise of tommorrow and the hope of generations.This land is ours and we reclaim what is ours with our voices,with our blood and with our souls.
This land is ours with the air we breathe on it is too sacred for those without soul to inhale.This land is ours and it shall be free.
We aa a people desirous of reclaiming our land and restoring our values must start by reflecting and paying homage to those that came before us and upon whose labour’s our generation is building upon.
Our forebears of ages past who bequethed to us a rich history of honour and dignity;who bound together as one indivisible entity called the Benue Confederacy and fought wars to liberate us from external forces that sought to subjugate us.
They thought us that in fighting together can we truly win.We are certain that this ancestors of ours who we have learnt about from our history books,and from the oral tradition of our griots are similarly assembled in the great beyond as a great cloud of witnesses to the fact that our leaders and their behomothic parties(The APC and the PDP)have failed us, cheering us on to go ahead in the next General election to elect a new leader and ensure we embark on this journey set before us.
We must reflect and salute our Patriots of more recent years who worked hard to ensure we have our own state within our great country Nigeria,some of them are now departed and a good number still with us regretting what our leaders have turn our state to.
We salute all of them and thank them for for the grand vision they have for our beloved state which unfortunately have been bastardized by our leaders as we are the very instruments through which their mandate was given for which they have dissappointing.
The next coming elections in 2023 in Benue state are very important especially to us the electorate.It should serve or mark the beginning of a new phase in our history as a people and also signals the end of an era or more appropriately,the end of an era of when our people will be taken for granted in their resolve to use their votes to choose freedom than servitude.
Our reputation as a people has been sullied and we have become the butt of jokes due to the class ineptitudes,loauacious ignorance and ravanious corruption masquarading as governance in our state.This election in 2023 we must be part of the change.It is our sacred duty and we have to live up to it by ensuring we through this campaigning period review and dessiminate the present state of affairs in our state so that all and sundry can know the truth of what has become of our Commonwealth and the way forward.
Independent verifiable findings indicates that our state as of the present has been plunged into a debt abyss of more than N170billion naira, with committments to innumerable white elephant projects and non-existent projects,an average of two years salary own across government entities and many state assets unaccounted for since our return to civil rule.
The next election is an opportunity for us to vote that leadership that within his first 100days in office,our people would know the true positions of things in keeping with the ethos of transparency and accountability in governance.
A government that would not lay emphasis or interested in trials by the media,witch hunting or playing to the gallery but seeking out the truth and laying it before the people. A leadership that when voted into office would not be on a revenge mission but a healing balm on a painful woundA government that as the events of of past years in the development wilderness go into the history books,owes it as a duty to the people and generations coming after us,work together to ensure that never again shall our people be deceived into making the grievous mistakes that has set us backward steeply on the development curve by his style of leadership.
A leadership that recognizes that we may not all belong to the same political party nor share the same ideological beliefs but together with the people make sure the rein of power in the state must never again be allowed to fall into the hands of those vested interest who do not understand what governance and development is all about.
A leadership that represents the yearnings of his people of never again giving up free and qualitative education for heaculean fees and taxes levied on their children,of never again giving up free and qualitative health care and functional hospital for a total neglect of the health sector,never again giving up integrated infrastructural development for bridges that leads nowhere and decrepit structures now overran by reptiles.
Never again give up peace and the unity of the people for increased crime rates and general insecurity.Never again give up transparent and accountable leadership with the requisite checks and balances of independent judicial and legislative arms of government rather than the present draconian one-man show.
Never again giving up our reputation as honourable and knowledgeable people to be known as apostles of business as usual.Never again sacrifice prompt payments of salaries for indulgence in pursuance of non-existent projects on paper of minimal benefits to the people.
This leader that represents our never again approach to the leadership of Benue state is Proffessor Been Angwe,the governorship candidate of the New Nigerian People’s Party(NNPP)in the state.
A VOTE FOR PROFFESSOR BEM ANGWE IS A VOTE FOR RECLAIMING OF OUR LAND;AND THE RESTORING OF OUR VALUES.
This is a leader that knows that from the ashes we rise and would shine as we look towards the light.The light of knowledge and intellectualism that the Benue people are known for,that knowledge that illuminates our minds and reflects in the good character and pristine values we holds dear.
This are the same values that have been eroded in recent years by our rent seeking leaders that he is coming to restore as the governor of the state.He is the man to beat because our people are now electorally sophisticated to know a good leader when they see one.We see it in Proffessor BEM Angwe.
His main mission when voted as Governor by his grace is to restore our values and bring back that driving vitality in leadership that will take us there.He has consistent made a Clarion call to us the people of the state to take ownership of this mission by embarking on this Noble journey with him.
Voting him into office will put us as apeople at the crisp of charting a new course of sustainable development out of the quagmire that we find ourselves in the state.In this tasks we should expect that we will face a number of threats and challenges,yet collectively blessed with immense amounts of strengths and beliefs we shall overcome.
This is because his vision for the state is one where the people can thrive and live their lives in dignity.A place where workers do not labour in vain.A place where our young people do not roam the streets looking for non existent jobs,a place where the people are not so hungry they resort to pilfer for food to survive.
A place where the circle of generational poverty can be broken and in which the elderly can reap the fruits of their labour over their children.A place where the people are safe,healthy and prosperous.
His governance agenda is therefore compelled to focus if elected on areas which he can deliver his promises to the people of Benue state.
The key pillars of his administration will be;Social investments,Knowledge economy;Infrastructural and industrial developments and Agriculture and rural development.
Simon Obochi
Secretary NNPP
Oturkpo
