By Collins Vershima
The newly sworn-in Governor of Benue State, Rev. Fr. Hyacinth Alia, has made the appointment of five persons, so far in his administration.
According to a Statement issued by his Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula, the Governor made the appointment of Prof. Joseph Alakali as the Secretary to the State Government.
He also appointed Moses Agbogbo Ode as Head of Service; Paul Biam as Chief of Staff; Tersoo Kula as the Chief Press Secretary and Dr. Emmanuel Chenge as the Principal Private Secretary.
Kula said, the appointments take immediate effect.
Interestingly, the new Benue State Governor, Rev Fr. Alia, on Monday ordered the placement of ‘Post No Debit’ on all bank accounts of the state, shortly after taking his oath of office.
Rev. Fr. Alia had hit the ground running with his administration by declaring state accounts frozen until all signatories are changed. He warned that any bank that violates this instruction does so at its own risk.Alia, inherited N187bn debt from his predecessor, Samuel Ortom.
In his inaugural address, Alia disclosed that his administration would review the anti-open grazing law passed by Ortom’s administration.
Describing the law as controversial, Ali said it needed to be reviewed to accommodate current realities.
Governor Alia insisted, “We are inheriting an anti-open grazing law, whose implementation has become controversial.
“Having gone through some period of implementation, it is fit and proper for us to review the law to identify the lessons learned, hold the gains made, if any, and reform to accommodate current realities.”
Also, the newly sworn-in Governor recognized the plight of workers in the state and promised to prioritise payment of salary and pension allowance.
“We must strike a healthy balance between caring for the generation that toiled for this State; I’m talking here about pension and gratuity for our pensioners, paying our serving employees a living wage and investing in the future of our children through revised curricula that meet the demands of a modern economy.
“A labourer deserves his wage, so says the Holy Book. We will prioritise and address the issue by ensuring that all verified arrears of salaries, pensions and gratuity are paid promptly without further delay.”
The new Governor decried the disconnection between the state for the past eight years and the Federal Government stressing is a result of bad Politics of the immediate past Government. He vowed to reconnect the state with the Centre Government in order to enjoy the necessary benefits.
“Politically, our state has been disconnected from the Federal Government because of bad politics. We commit to reconnecting Benue State to the proverbial ‘national grid’ of Nigerian politics in order to harvest the benefits derivable therefrom,” he said.
