REVEALED! GOVERNOR ALIA DIVERTS N100 BILLION TO FUND PRIVATE INVESTMENTS IN FREETOWN & RWANDA
The Network for Transparent Governance (NTG) wishes to authoritatively inform Benue people that Governor Hyacinth Alia has since accessed the N100 billion loan that the State House of Assembly recently approved for him and diverted the funds to complete the private university he is currently building for himself in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone.
Part of the money has gone into the Shoprite franchise Alia has bought in Rwanda with multi million dollars.
The development has sparked negative reactions from some members of the Benue State House of Assembly whom Governor Alia promised to give N50 million each from the N100 billion they approved for him. According to sources, the governor renegaded on his promise and refused to give anything to the lawmakers.
Governor Alia is running a rogue administration. He is bleeding Benue State. His current net worth in less than three years is estimated to be in the neighborhood of 450 million dollars.
Despite presiding over the highest revenue inflow in Benue’s history with a massive ₦327.61 billion in 2024 alone, Governor Alia’s government has nothing to show but ballooning financial recklessness, unpaid obligations, particularly arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuities which he promised to clear but has failed, decaying infrastructure, and grinding poverty across the state.
Instead of translating these resources into roads, schools, healthcare, and real economic empowerment, the administration has blown a shocking ₦353.81 billion, with nearly ₦200 billion wasted on unnecessary expenses including the purchase of two private jets for the governor and owning many other properties home and abroad and funding a lavish lifestyle for Governor Alia and his small group in power headed by one Moses Ternenge and one Livinus Tsar, while the people sink deeper into hardship.
The recent shocking revelation by BudgiT ranking Benue State 34th out of 35 states in Nigeria’s 2024 fiscal performance index and the Good Governance Rating Index (GGRI), a United Kingdom-based international governance monitor, which also ranked Governor Alia among the absolute worst governors in Nigeria, was a humiliation unprecedented in Benue’s history. The reports of the two organizations painted a grim portrait: a governor unwilling to confront insecurity, presiding over spreading poverty, corruption concerns, and a government moving with no direction or purpose. These confirmed what the people have long known, that Governor Alia has plunged Benue into an unprecedented financial crisis.
We, the Network for Transparent Governance (NTG), condemn in the strongest possible terms this pattern of fiscal recklessness and insensitivity. It is a betrayal of public trust and a brutal assault on the dignity of Benue people who hoped for change but got deceit and mismanagement instead.
Governor Alia must give account of the N100 billion loan has taken and why he chose to divert the funds to his private investments in Sierra Leone and Rwanda. He must also explain how his government received over ₦327 billion in a single year (2024) but ranked as the worst managed state in Nigeria. Where did the money go? Who benefited from the billions poured into recurrent expenditure while the state’s economy lies in shambles?
Benue under Alia is in the throes of maladministration, executive recklessness, crass disregard for due process and mindless embezzlement of public funds by a man who was ordained as a priest and is expected to uphold the highest leadership standards of piety, transparency and accountability.
Governor Alia is a direct opposite of what is good and just. The man is not only stinkingly corrupt, he exemplifies everything negative in leadership and carries on with the air of impunity and contempt.
Alia has made falsehood a part of his life and character. No wonder the catholic church suspended Alia twice – in Makurdi Diocese and Gboko Diocese as a result of his bad behaviour.
He rode to power as a governor pretending to be a good person. He deceived unsuspecting Benue using the priestly cassock of the church. Today, he is rightly rated by domestic and foreign organizations as the most corrupt and worst performing governor in Nigeria!
Governor Alia has deliberately refused to clear the arrears of salaries of workers and pensions which all other state governors have since paid.
Since the 29th of May 2023, Governor Alia has sealed all Benue State government accounts and he is the only one who operates the accounts and spends from them as it pleases him. Alia has turned state resources into his private wealth and no one dares raise a finger to question his excesses.
Despite being in his third year in office, Governor Alia is yet to commission a single project, while his counterparts in other states are actively developing their states with signature projects.
None of the 23 local governments in Benue State has constructed even a single toilet. The governor recently removed the Special Adviser on Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs to personally assume the role and have full control of FAAC allocations to the local governments which have now quadrupled.
We call on the EFCC, and all relevant anti-corruption agencies to immediately launch a probe into the financial dealings of the Alia administration. The time for political excuses is over. Benue deserves answers, and the people demand justice.
Signed:
Dennis Agema
President, Network for Transparent Governance (NTG)
Oliver Omenka
Secretary General, NTG
