ALIA’S CHIEFTAINCY TITLE: A PLAQUE STAINED WITH BENUE VICTIMS’ BLOOD
As Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State receives a chieftaincy title today from the Tor Tiv, Professor James Ayatse in Gboko, over 1.5 million victims of Fulani terrorist attacks are homeless across the state and their ancestral homelands have been occupied by the jihadist nomads.
Governor Alia is not bothered by the fact that the very people he swore to protect are writhing in pain and they have no hope of returning to their homes ever again! He is apparently happy that his friends the Fulani are now in charge of many communities in the state and their cows graze openly and freely in our communities.
Perhaps it is in celebration of this “accomplishment” that Alia has asked the Tiv Area Traditional Council to confer on him the title of “Asortar U Tiv” and has requested his band of supporters to roll out the drums and sing his high praises.
The question is, which tar (area) is Alia soron (developing)? A man who, in less than three years, has divided Benue people more than the state has ever been divided! How is Alia a unifier or developer? A man who has cut off a whole senatorial district (Benue South) from every project and appointment; a man who has taken all key appointments to his Mbadede Ward in Vandeikya; a man who has sealed all government accounts for nearly three years and has not given account of monthly allocations meant for local governments in nearly three years, how is such a man an asortar? The best title for Alia is Avihitar (one who destroys a society).
To show that the lives of the people do not matter to him, Alia recently declared that there is no genocide in Benue State. The entire nation was shocked! A priest denying the ongoing genocide in his state just to remain loved by those who kill his people, how is such a man a true priest of the church?
Alia is not only a sitting governor; he is a Catholic priest of 35 years standing. That fact alone turns today’s chieftaincy honour in Gboko from a cultural celebration into a shameful crisis of identity. A man who once lay prostrate before the altar, who vowed obedience and renunciation, cannot casually step forward to receive a traditional crown without doing violence to the very meaning of the priesthood.
Let us be sincere: a priest does not get crowned.
The Catholic priesthood is not a costume one removes for convenience. It is an indelible mark, a lifelong configuration to Christ. You may leave the parish, you may enter politics, but you do not stop being a priest. When such a man accepts a traditional chieftaincy title, especially one conferred by a paramount ruler, it is not honour he receives; it is confusion he spreads. The altar is not a stepping stone to the throne.
Chieftaincy titles are not neutral ornaments. They are worldly symbols of elevation, hierarchy, power and honour. They announce to the world: this man is above others. The Gospel announces the opposite: this man must become least of all. A priest who accepts public elevation while wearing the memory of sacred vows empties the priesthood of its moral force. You cannot preach humility with a crown on your head.
Then comes the explosive issue of obedience. Catholic priests do not freelance their conscience. They answer to the Church. The church doctrine says priests must avoid roles, honours and offices that compromise their sacred ministry or bind them to alternative authority structures. A chieftaincy title is precisely that, another throne, another loyalty, another centre of honour. No priest has the right to invent his own exceptions. Disobedience wrapped in culture is still disobedience.
Worse still is the spiritual symbolism that cannot be wished away. In Tiv land, and across Africa, chieftaincy is never just social. It is spiritual, ancestral, and ritual-laden. Even when rituals are sanitized for public consumption, the meaning remains. A Catholic priest cannot kneel at the altar of Christ and stand proudly beside ancestral stools. Spiritual allegiance is not divisible. The altar tolerates no rivals.
Politically, this act is even more reckless. Governor Alia already occupies a fiercely partisan space. By accepting a chieftaincy title, he has dragged the traditional authority into politics and politics into tradition, while wrapping both in priestly symbolism. This is a dangerous cocktail. A priest is meant to be a moral compass above factions, not a crowned participant in power games. Once the cassock begins to smell of the palace, the pulpit loses its credibility.
But perhaps the greatest damage is what this act tells the faithful. What lesson is being taught to Catholics, seminarians, and young priests? That vows are flexible? That priesthood can coexist comfortably with crowns, titles and traditional power? That the cross can be exchanged for honour when it becomes inconvenient? This is how institutions rot, not by persecution, but by contradiction from within.
Let no one hide behind inculturation. Inculturation is not cultural indulgence. It is the purification of culture by the Gospel. Culture must kneel before Christ, not decorate Him. A Catholic priest does not represent a clan, a stool, or a traditional court. He represents the universal Church. That is why laypeople may take titles freely, but priests must refuse them firmly. The higher the calling, the heavier the restraint.
This is not about insulting the Tor Tiv or rejecting Tiv tradition. It is about drawing a hard line where it must be drawn. A priest cannot be both shepherd and chief, both servant and crown-bearer, both altar minister and traditional ruler, without tearing the fabric of his vocation.
Alia has not only ridiculed the church that brought him fame; he has desecrated the altar of God with his desperation for more power, more wealth and influence!
Written by Moses Kwaghgba
