Between Friday, January 23, and Saturday, January 24, Sir Alex Addingi, Special Adviser to the Governor of Benue State on International Investments and Pointman, undertook sensitisation visits to Buruku Local Government Area (LGA). The purpose was to encourage the people of his local area (Buruku LGA) to participate in the continuous voter registration exercise and the All Progressives Congress (APC) e-registration.
The takeaways from the visit went beyond encouraging people to register to exercise their civic rights and to take membership of a political party; it exposed what grassroots communities are saying about the administration of Fr. Hyacinth Alia, Executive Governor of Benue State, and what they believe would make life better if he addressed them.
Fr. Alia will complete three years as governor on May 29 this year. From the pulpit and without prior political experience, he secured an overwhelming victory in 2023, making him the second priest to assume leadership as governor of Benue State.
Although democracy is about the people, oftentimes those who have the opportunity to lead assume they know what the people want without asking them. Perhaps this explains why there are many abandoned projects in both rural areas and urban centres: such projects often do not reflect the people’s actual needs.
So what did Sir Addingi do differently during the sensitisation visit to his local area? He engaged directly with the people, extracting invaluable feedback for Fr. Alia—how local populations view the administration and what they are looking forward to the governor doing for them.
Buruku LGA is made up of 13 council wards—five from Tombo and eight from Mbanyam, comprising Mbagen, Kusuv, Etilo, and Shôrov. Meeting with the wards separately afforded him the opportunity to hear, on behalf of the governor, what the people wanted.
While they did not speak about individual needs, their demands centred on education, feeder roads, electricity, water, empowerment schemes, jobs, and the provision of security in Mbaya and in communities bordering Sankera. These are basic needs of society and represent the essence of governance.
If the Sir Addingi model of listening to local populations about what they want done for them is replicated across the state, the governor would be better informed on how to distribute limited resources to meet the people’s needs. Indeed, human wants are many, but the means to satisfy them are limited, which is why planning is critical in setting priority goals. Sir Addingi has set the pace. It is hoped that the governor’s aides will borrow a leaf from this approach and relay feedback from their respective local areas.
This is not the first time Sir Addingi has taken the lead in breaking new ground in the state. In 2014, he launched an oil palm campaign named Operation Black Gold. He began the campaign in his hometown and later took it to Ushongo LGA. His vision was for every household in Benue State to own oil palm trees.
Sir Addingi’s mission was clear: to make Benue State a hub for oil palm and its products. Beyond advocacy, he freely distributed oil palm seedlings to encourage local populations to plant them for their economic benefits.
Convinced of the investment’s potential, Fr. Alia, upon assuming office, saw the need to sustain the campaign. The Benue Alia Palm Project (BAP) was born to ensure the availability of oil palm seedlings for planting. These are exotic seedlings with yields established to be unprecedented.
It is hoped that just as Fr. Alia bought into the oil palm campaign, he will also give due attention to the notes Sir Addingi has presented to him regarding the needs of the people of Buruku LGA.
Sir Addingi remains optimistic that the governor will attend to these requests. The onus is now on the governor to act, lest his aide be ridiculed for taking the people’s time without tangible results.
