GOV ALIA’S ANTI-IDOMA AGENDA WILL BE ANSWERED IN 2027
By Peter Adoche
There comes a point when silence becomes an endorsement of oppression. And today, every Idoma son and daughter must confront a bitter truth: Governor Hyacinth Alia has shown a depth of contempt for the Idoma people that shocks the conscience. For a man once ordained to preach fairness, humility, and justice, his behaviour towards our people raises one haunting question – what doctrine produced this level of hostility and inhumanity?
Governor Alia, a suspended priest who rode to power on manipulated sentiments and mass deception, has once again bared his fangs. He has demonstrated, with chilling consistency, that his disdain for the Idoma nation is not an accident. It is a policy of his dictatorship.
Reliable information has it that Governor Alia has instructed the Tiv paramount ruler, Professor James Ayatse, to confer an elaborate chieftaincy title on former governor Gabriel Suswam on December 13, 2025, in Gboko.
This is the same Suswam currently being prosecuted over the diversion of N3.1 billion from the sale of Benue shares, a case actively before the Federal High Court.
Similarly, Suswam and some of his appointees were indicted by the Justice Kpojime Commission of Inquiry of embezzling N107 billion from the coffers of Benue State Government. If not for the intervention of the Benue State Council of Traditional Rulers, Suswam was going to jail.
Yet, this is the man Governor Alia has chosen to celebrate with pomp, pageantry, and unrestrained fanfare.
But let us recall what this same Governor Alia did in June 2024.
The Och’Idoma, Agabaidu Elaigwu John, CON, had included former Commissioner for Finance, David Olofu, among other distinguished Idoma achievers to be honoured.
Alia immediately ordered Olofu’s removal from the list of honorees on the grounds that he was “under EFCC investigation.”
This was a lie!
Olofu was neither arrested, investigated, nor invited by any anti-graft agency.
His only “crime” was that he is Idoma.
So let us be clear:
A Tiv man facing actual prosecution is worthy of celebration. But an Idoma man with no stain of indictment is unworthy of recognition in Alia’s Benue!
What clearer illustration of the governor’s ethnic bias do we need?
Even Senate Minority Leader Patrick Abba Moro captured it perfectly when he declared:“No Benue governor hates Idoma people like Governor Alia.”
The distinguished Senator was right. Three years into the Alia administration, Zone C has been reduced to a barren landscape of neglect. No projects. No appointments. No inclusion. Nothing. Governor Alia’s leadership pattern is not merely insensitive, it is openly clannish, brazenly exclusionary, and disturbingly vindictive.
This is why recently, the Idoma Proactive Diaspora Coalition (IPDC) cried out to both God and the international community, describing Alia’s governance as ethnic persecution, a phrase no group uses lightly.
President of the group, Dr. Alechenu Amali lamented the systematic sidelining of Idoma communities despite the overwhelming votes they gave Alia in 2023.
That was the ultimate betrayal: The Idoma people voted for a priest, believing he would be fair. Instead, they got a governor who has weaponized ethnicity with ruthless precision.
Major appointments – Tiv.
Major projects – Tiv.
New rural roads – exclusively Tiv.
Development priorities – Tiv.
Idoma interests – ignored, suffocated, erased.
The IPDC went as far as warning that Alia’s actions seem designed to reduce the Idoma people to a helpless minority within their own state, a political erasure masked as governance.
And yet Alia continues, unapologetic, unrestrained, and unbothered.
But let it be said clearly: The Idoma people are watching!The Idoma people are recording! And the Idoma people are waiting for 2027!
Governor Alia may continue to treat the Idoma nation with disdain, but the day of political reckoning is coming.
A day when our voices will thunder louder than his prejudice. A day when ballots will answer arrogance.
A day when the Idoma people will speak in a language this hate-filled former priest can no longer ignore.
2027 will be that day!
