LG polls: I won’t toy with my reputation –Gov Alia

By Egena Sunday Ode

Benue State Governor, Rev. Father Hyacinth Alia, has said he would not allow anybody to use the upcoming local government election in the state to damage his reputation.
He declared that the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries conducted in the state ahead of the October 5 polls were the best ever as transparency and fairness were maximally upheld.
Governor Alia stated this on Thursday while fielding questions from newsmen after a closed-doors meeting with President Bola Tinubu.
Specifically, the governor was responding to a question on alleged imposition of candidates in the recent APC primary elections.
He said contrary to the allegations, the APC primaries in Benue were transparent, fruitful, adding that the people were excited about the processes that led to the emergence of the candidates who would be sloging it out at the polls.
His words: “You know that there are certain people even if you work on the water they will say you’re raising dust.
“So I learned quite fast just to contend them, you know, to accommodate them, and to give them their own leverage, What we did was to engage the direct process.
“Definitely you have one or two people who are grumbling. What we did was that we kind of gave everybody their own fair share of saying something, and imputing, you know, in the entire process.
“So believe me, I wouldn’t try to toy with the reputation I built with my name and on my personality. So just for the records, it was quite transparent it was very fruitful and people are quite excited about it too and I’m looking forward to October 5th, so if you happen to have a friend whom the polls would not favor, please just tell him to just look up to the skies and say well there’s always a next time.”

The governor said he was at the State House to brief President Tinubu on the state’s preparations to combat the impending flooding as a result of the release of water from Ladgo dam in Cameroun as well as the fast approaching LG polls in the state.

“Actually I just came to brief Mr President on the state of affairs in Benue. So he is happy that governance is going well in the state and security has improved in the state and we can sleep with our two eyes closed.

“On preparations of the state ahead of floods in Benue,
I didn’t say we are thinking of what to do when the floods come, we are not thinking, we are prepared, we are creating awareness to all our people.

“So for the record we’re not just waiting, we have a SEMA, an emergency management team, they have the capacity to take charge of all this and they are already quite armed. We pray that the flood doesn’t come in but, if it does you know we are definitely equal to the task,” the governor said.