[OPINION] Benue guber race: Please give Idoma the chance

Early this morning, I was in my study looking for a book, Anatomy of Female Power, when I stumbled on a book titled”This is our chance” authored by James Ene Henshaw.

Late Mr Uloko Echebiogo, our literature master introduced us to this book in our form two at Government Teachers College, Utonkon in 1981.

The book is a classic drama text but it is apolitical. It was our exhilaration because of the myriad jaw-breaking terms it harbours. Many of those words we manipulated to daunt some of our classmates from the bucolic regions.

After flipping through some pages, it instantaneously struck me that I could borrow my article headline from the inscription of the book with little mutations. Hence, I opted for the above title.

Since the creation of Benue State in 1976, the people of Benue – South Senatorial District have not been allowed to assess the seat of the governorship of the state. This undesirable scenario was no doubt occasioned by their inadequate numerical strength. Though, they occupied an exclusive Senatorial District, their population alone are not sufficient to grab their heart desires – the governorship stool.

Numerous efforts have been deployed in the past to gravitate the political pendulum to the Benue – South without accomplishment. These include alliance, collaboration and outright servitude.

The situation was made worse by the excision of the Idoma people from the Tiv dominated House of Assembly in 1992 for agitating for the creation of the proposed Apa state. Since then, with all intents and purposes, the people of Benue South have been relegated to the back burner in the political process of the State.

No substantial political responsibility has been allowed to snake its way to the people of Lower Benue. It is therefore instructive to note that no man from Benue South has been allowed to head the legislative arms of the state government. Ditto for the headship of the state-owned university. Physical development appears to be strange, far and forlorn to this lineage of people in the state; a situation that has rendered them vulnerable in the abyss of poverty and underdevelopment.

As it is, if care is not taken, the corporality of the state will be jaundiced as ethnic hatred and animosity appear to have taken the median of the political theatre.

The best way to extricate the state from the above maladies is to allow somebody from the Benue South Senatorial District to emerge as the governor of the state for the first time since the creation of the state. And This can only be achieved via the instrumentality of the various political parties. And the time is now that party primaries are in the offing.

Good enough, there is an avalanche of credible people from the Benue South already angling for the plum job. Some of these people are the incumbent Deputy Governor, Engr Benson Abounu who is the only candidate from the Benue South in the People’s Democratic Party. His adoption should therefore not pose difficulty to PDP delegates.

Chiefs Steve Lawani and Samuel Ode are equally swatting it out in the All Progressive Congress. My friend and uncle, Dr Sam Abba is also in the contest. Benjamin Ewaoche Obe popularly known as Pablo, I am told is also in the race.

These are people with tremendous experience. They are all endowed with the capacity to deliver democratic dividends. They can liberate the state from its current quagmire while ushering in a new fortune to the benefit of generations yet unborn.

Our Tiv brothers should therefore in the spirit of harmony, love for humanity, fair play, equity and justice allow somebody from the Benue South to occupy the seat of the governor of the state.

They should please grant somebody from Benue South the opportunity to govern the state for this is the right time to display their humanism towards the unity of the state and love docked on conjugality. I know the Tiv people as Godly people who will not hesitate to do the will of God in this enterprise.

I am very confident that when this is done, the Tiv elites and the entire Tiv nation under the indomitable rulership of Professor James Ayatse would have etched their names in the sand of history. And posterity will be kind to them and their generation till eternity. God will honour them beyond measure. And together we shall inhabit a state called our shacks.

Elijah, the living ancestor writes from O’Eje Fortress, Otada – Otukpo