Alia’s Anti-Corruption Bill May Land Him in Prison
…Gov will harass LG chairmen, judiciary & legislature with the law
By Dennis Agema
Makurdi, Nigeria — Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State has sent a bill to the State House of Assembly for the establishment of a Public Complaints and Anti-Corruption Commission. This move is what can speedily send Alia to jail when he leaves office in 2027.
Governor Alia’s real motive behind the anti-corruption bill is to establish an attack dog commission that he can use to intimidate local government chairmen who will refuse to cooperate with his government by not remitting a major part of their monthly federal allocations now that money is to be sent to the bank accounts of the 23 councils directly. Alia has tasted the local government allocations and like a honeycomb, he does not want to let it go. More than N100 billion of local government funds are unaccounted for, since Alia took over.
The anti-corruption commission Governor Alia is desperately trying to establish will go after stubborn local government chairmen who fail to submit their accounts for his use. The commission will be empowered to arrest such council officials on flimsy charges and accuse them of corruption. If they agree to cooperate and be ‘good boys’ going forward, they will be let off the hook.
The governor knows that it is only a matter of time for local government chairmen whom he installed through a crude and illegal process to be sacked by the courts and replaced with the authentic candidates of the All Progressives Congress from the camp of the party’s State Chairman Austin Agada. Governor Alia is therefore frantically trying to set up a commission that can harass the Agada local government chairmen when they take over.
Another major motive behind Alia’s decision to establish the anti-corruption commission is to cage the state judiciary and the state legislature. He wants to permanently have control over the Benue State House of Assembly so the lawmakers will never think of impeaching him. With a potent weapon like the anti-corruption commission in his hand, Governor Alia can have the financial dossiers of all the Assembly members including their bank transactions. He can effectively use the documents to threaten the lawmakers and whip them into the fear of being indicted and thrown into jail.
Alia has inserted a nebulous and weird section in the bill which he will use like a rabid dog against perceived opponents and those he feels stand in his way such as some High Court Judges and Legislators. The section generally talks about those suspected to have ill-gotten wealth.
The Section in question is Section 56 of the bill which states thus:
“The Commission shall have the powers to investigate the source of wealth of any person, whether a public servant or not, who is a citizen or resident of Benue state. And for this purpose, the Commission shall:-
(1) Demand from any Bank, or financial institutions to furnish her with the account details or financial transactions and statement of any person under Powers of police officers under this Law.
(2) Analyze such account details or financial transactions and statement referred to in subsection
1 above, critically and arraign for prosecution any person who fails to satisfactorily explain their source
of wealth for the offence of unlawful enrichment.
(3) Any person who fails to satisfactorily explain or defend their source of wealth, shall be presumed to have gotten such wealth by corrupt means or illegally.”
The above section of the bill is the very basis for Alia’s journey to jail when he is out of office. He has stolen Benue’s money in a short time with impunity and aggression and there is no way he can escape prison. The governor is the sole signatory to all bank accounts of the state. He has sealed all accounts of ministries, departments and agencies of government and withdraws money from the accounts whenever he wants.
Governor Alia carries out official bank transactions personally and signs government contracts personally and such contracts are never advertised or bidded for. He awards the contracts to companies owned by his Fulani sponsors, particularly former Kaduna governor Nasir el Rufai. The state law on due process and that of fiscal responsibility have been abandoned under Alia. No one dares question the governor. He is a sole proprietor of the state government.
In less than 6 months into Alia’s tenure, more than N60 billion Benue money had gone missing. Whistleblowers raised alarm but he used more money to cause the arrest and detention of the whistleblowers.
But when Alia is out of power in 2027, his immunity will be taken away and the cold arm of the law will grab him by the throat.
He will go to jail!
* Agema is the
President, Network For Transparent Governance (NTG).
