Counsel for the Indigenous People of Biafra, Ifeanyi Ejiofor, says the Benue State Governor is only trained for the pulpit and not suited for political leadership.
The activist lawyer stated this in a statement Friday while reacting to the governor’s position on self-defense amid the worsening security crisis in the state.
Ejiofor opined that the governor openly discouraging “the very people he swore to protect from defending themselves against the bloodthirsty incursions of killer herdsmen”; is distressing and disheartening.
“His pronouncement, calling on unarmed and defenceless citizens not to engage in self-defence, is not just a dereliction of duty; it is a betrayal of the collective agony of Benue people who have endured one of the worst humanitarian crises in Nigeria’s modern history,”; Ejiofor said.
According to the lawyer, the governor’s position on self-defense indicates that “he remains tragically unsuited for the brutal realities of political leadership,”; stressing that Alia’s training as a cleric “may have prepared him for the pulpit, but not for the urgent, often harsh demands of governance in a state under siege.”;
He said if the Federal Government led by President Bola Tinubu “lacks the moral and political courage to declare a State of Emergency in Benue, then the burden now rests squarely on the Benue State House of Assembly.”;
According to him, the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria empowers the lawmakers to act in defence of their people.
“If Governor Alia has lost touch with the reality of his people’s suffering, if he has chosen to speak peace where there is no peace, then it is incumbent on the House to activate the relevant constitutional mechanisms and return him to the pulpit where idealism, not realism, reigns supreme,”; the lawyer added.
