Hyacinth Alia, Benue State Governor, assumed office amid some of the state’s most pressing challenges, including insecurity, widespread displacement, weak infrastructure, unemployment and an economy in need of stronger private-sector activity. Since then, his administration has embarked on reforms aimed at restoring stability, improving public finances and creating an environment for economic growth.
The government has also prioritised the return of internally displaced persons (IDPs) to their ancestral homes, the rebuilding of critical infrastructure, the revival of moribund industries and the strengthening of agriculture, a sector central to Benue’s economic identity. But significant challenges remain, particularly around security, job creation, investment and the sustainability of the state’s finances.
In this interview with BusinessDay’s Tope Omogbolagun, Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, speaks on his administration’s efforts to tackle insecurity, return IDPs to their ancestral homes, rebuild infrastructure, revive industries, strengthen agriculture and reform the state’s finances.
Your administration has been in office for over three years. What would you say you have achieved so far, and what informed your development blueprint?
We came into governance with our own blueprints and a way of quantifying and identifying the projects’ desired fate for the good people of the state. So, we came out to have them executed. Much has been done.
Thank you so much for going out to the field to see what a blueprint has prescribed and what we have been able to achieve. And as much as much is done, I know that so much is still left to be done.
The fact here is that the moment we came in, we had declared a state of emergency on our roads infrastructure.
This is why, if you go around the 23 local governments, there has been very good connectivity of road networks now in most parts of the state. In a number of our urban places, we are doing urban renewal roads.
And all the roads within some major townships here have also been converted into the newness of what they are today. We have achieved quite enormously on the reformation and revamping of our primary schools.
They were in the Intensive Care Units; local government primary schools were no longer being attended to.
So, we were able to give some priority attention just to revamp the primary schools, and hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of primary schools in local governments have been brought back to life.
We were able to hire 9,700 teachers, actually, just for the primary schools. And then we also went statewide to take care of the primary health institutions.
First of all, what we had and life was literally running out from was the teaching hospital. So, once it was fixed, and it is fixed now to this purpose, to a point that we are having medical tourists coming from all the surrounding states here.
We are very grateful that we also have a VIP wing of it. And, in fact, this is one of the units that is most attended by those who come from outside of the state here.
I think it is simply due to the fact that we have a number of specialists to cover those areas. So, it is quite welcome to have them.
Now, we have to get back to the basics, the primary healthcare establishments. They had vanished for some reasons because no attention was given.
So, we had to recreate some traction in there.
And what we have done now is that hundreds and hundreds of primary healthcare establishments have been brought back to life.
We are expecting some consignment to come in from the United States.
We have been in some collaboration and partnership with the United States government and subnational governments on health.
So, we ordered some instruments that will be coming. These are meant to be delivered to the local government, to the primary healthcare facilities in different local governments.
You have spoken about your blueprint and promises made to the people. What informed the decision to focus on these areas?
Why did we have to do this? When you say you will, I think the willpower should also be accompanied. And when you tell the people this is what will also make them or promote them, I feel something has to be done about that.
And we had monitored very closely the words we had given the people. We had to inspect what we were expecting out there.
So, the results you see out there now are the inspections we had done to ensure that a blueprint was made, promises were made to people. We received good enough funds from even the Federal Government as well.
And that gained a lot of support from us. We had a hiccup, and the hiccup was the insecurity and insurgencies that crept in. But again, thank God that the Federal Government immediately swung in.
Benue has faced serious insecurity and displacement. How would you describe the situation now, and what is happening to internally displaced persons?
We have a very high, I would call it, amount of relative peace in this state. How do we get the indices? Through our security apparatuses who are out there in all the local governments, and then through the traditional institutions as well, and then also through our own people, the citizenry of the state who are there.
We had a chunk of the internally displaced persons. Fifteen internally displaced persons camps were set around the state.
A few internally displaced persons camps we have now; we are already making some plans to close down some, because the internally displaced persons occupants have very directly and voluntarily gone back to do their farming.
And here is the thing: by the plan, by the durable solution we have made, with the collaboration and the partnership of the international community, the United Nations, the International Organization for Migration, and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, we truly appreciate the efforts and the support they sent to us.
In conjunction, we made so many inroads into ensuring that the internally displaced persons are returned to their homelands and back to their farms. It is not just for them to go back to farm and then come back again.
You continue to see a dwindling number from the Internally Displaced Persons camps. And this is because they are out there, not just farming, but now constructing their own homes back.
So, it is a hope that we will continue to pump in, by various forms and shades, as security frameworks, so that they remain back there and they do what they know how to do best, the farming.
Benue is 50 years old. Looking back at its development, what do you think has been responsible for the gaps you are trying to address?
Thank you so much. It is a very tricky question. Trying to answer it expressly, we need to touch on the inefficiencies of certain leadership. But I will try to pull that out from the attempts in here.
And there has to be a direction. There has to be a mission, and there has to be a vision. Benue State is 50 years old today.
And in the 50 years, we have had a series of leadership that came in and out. As a state, do we have a development plan, a master development plan? The answer is no, we did not.
So, when people came in, they made some inroads on what they thought was meant for the people. But again, this is what the blueprint is expected to be.
You do a filtering of the people you are going to serve. What are your needs, your priority needs? Do you really want this? Do you really have this as a need? Want is different from a need.
So, when you do not do a filtering, the tendency of you just simply doing the want of the people is there. We had to go down to the trenches to ensure that this is what the market woman is needing at this particular time. This is what the farmers are desiring. And this is what everybody in the state truly seeks to have.
How are you ensuring that the projects you are executing are sustainable beyond your tenure?
On a number of the other projects we have done, there is some caveat to enable it to stay sustained.
And if people say the government does not have business into business, if government does not have those whose minds are hung on business, then every little effort made, you know, it is going down the drain.
We have established, very fresh, the Benue Food Basket Brewery, Zeva Premium Lager beer. We had one before.
If you take statistics from the people to know why we had more beer breweries here previously. Doing an empirical analysis, it was simply because people desired it.
If, through that means, a lot of capital flight is being taken out, it is being made against us, against the state, against those who are supposed to be enjoying it.
You would experience some problems like that. It is not that we have people who love to drink so much. It is, after all, food. People love it.
We make it from local produce: from the sorghum we produce, from the cassava we produce, from the corn we make.
So, if we are producing this, why are we not converting it so that we all have the rippling effect of the value chain? So, this is being made. And there are several things that are put in place to ensure that the Zeva factory survives.
We have the juice factory. We also have a separate factory from the juice, the concentrate factory. All those three factories, made in the last three years, are functional, and they are meant to remain as such because we continue to monitor.
We have the right people to ensure that things work. Now, we are also getting some partnership from out there who want to have these.
Now, in the last one year, a bag of orange has shot from N3,500 to N17,500 as I am speaking now, and many more.
There is a lot of competition for that. The farmers are also going to enjoy it.
We have already registered all the site rooms and those who have their orchards. Those different frames of farms are being registered under cooperatives. They know that this is the source of where the funds are coming for them.
One, to keep their farms; two, to expand the farms and then to keep them smiling to the bank. So, there is a full assurance that what they do today will be sustained tomorrow.
And they know that we are going to be very constant. So, we are business-minded and wise, which means we have put in place what is going to make them stay.
You have also revived the Taraku Mills. What does that mean for Benue’s agricultural economy?
It is quite unfortunate that we had lost the Taraku Mill. It is one of the very huge components of driving the economy here in the state.
That arm of commerce had died because people felt it was just a common cake. Get your knife, cut a chunk, and then you leave. But at the end of the day, everybody lost in the state.
Benue State was the number one producer of soybeans here, nationwide. So, we are now trying to work our way back to the front line again.
And what is that going to do to the farmers? They understand that the Taraku Mill has come back. It is going to be a market sustenance for the farm produce they are doing on the farm.
Already, we have started giving farm incentives.
We are giving some money to non-farmers, to very big farmers, to go and then get back into soybean farming. We are already giving farm inputs to those who have identified themselves. Some data was already taken.
So, if some good guard, as we have in place now, would be sustained as we have designed and planned, I want to believe that we are going to even raise more companies here.
These are cottage industries; once they are in place here, several lives are going to be changed.
We are even intending to have a Benue farm market in Abuja. The road is now express. We used to do five and a half hours from here to Abuja. Now it is even shorter. It takes under three hours for us to get to Abuja.
So, what stops us from bringing the Benue fresh farms? Oranges, yams, you name them, over there. Except if you do not plant, you do not harvest on this land.The land is very fertile.
So, these are the advantages we have. And if people are making money consistently from their produce, we are going to remain on the path we have now taken.
So, we did not just bring back to life the Taraku Mills. It is just one factory that we have resurrected. But all the other new ones are also going to be sustained.
And I am very hopeful that as people get some more money and supply to the bank, they are also going to ensure that they will keep coming back to us.
What structures have you put in place to ensure that future administrations continue with your development agenda?
At Benue at 50, we began a 30-year master plan to ensure that even after power is changed, the same developmental dynamics are still kept.
The same vision is being shared, and the same mission is being embarked upon through this developmental plan.
So, I want to believe that if people continue to hold us and those who come after me accountable for the results to be given, I want to believe that it is only one new trend to keep on. These are people-driven projects.
What is different about the roads being constructed by your administration?
The roads we are doing are very different from the roads done previously and in a number of places elsewhere.
The roads we are constructing are stone-based roads that have a guarantee of over 30 years. They have a guarantee; in fact, I just minimise the years as I pay the contractors.
So, why do we have to spend so much on this? If I have given so much life and concentration, again, and traction to the road projects, not only in town, in different parts of our suburbs.
So that as we begin to build the master development plan of the state, should we bring in roads in there, it is going to be not as heavy as it would have been.
We have taken care of the primary healthcare. We have already embarked on the secondary tier of the health system. If those are done and subsequent administrations come, they will have less concentration on those because they are fundamentally and diligently done in a manner that durability is guaranteed and is visibly also felt.
This is why what we do is purely based on that durability of the thing, a guarantee for these things. And it is left to the people now.
They wanted it. We have gone above and beyond to ensure the durability of the thing. So, we push everything back to them, back to their hands.
This was the mandate you gave us. There are many, many more things I have to do going forward in the second term. So, am I a worthy servant just to keep going forward? Because when you send me, I go and you see results.
And these are results that you have now. So, is it ideal that you send me again? They have already given me the answer that, yes, Father, you are worth our sending. And then we are going to do this.
So, I am all into their hands. But what we have on the ground, it is what they desire. They kept me accountable. They kept me accountable.
And the Federal Government had supplied much for us. So, we were able to ensure that what we got is being felt, seen and used by the very people who sent us.
You have mentioned new partnerships in agriculture. How will they help farmers get more value from their produce?
I am going into certain partnerships. In fact, this afternoon, we were about to sign something, but the point man who is supposed to do this had another function. So, we had to wait.
Some project on Food City. This is going to be an agricultural zone to co-exist where much land has been given to these people. We have done our part by giving the land. We are taking care of it by constructing the road to this space. And then they bring in their own facilities also to put this.
We share in the residues that are going to come from here. So, I think it is one quick way to do this. Let us not be deceived.
I think what we know today is superior to what people knew and were practising just years ago.
Meaning simply that for us to get more mileage on the produce we make on our farm, for us to be able to expand our farms, and for us to be able to create more economy from the drive we do on those farms and different forms of commerce, we have to be mindful of the value chain in between.
So, anything short of that would never work.
People want this. People have a desire for it. They go back to their farms. They are now expanding their farms because of the support we give them.
We just distributed over 11 trucks of fertiliser from the Federal Government. We did ours some two months back at the level of the state to our own farmers. And when we do this, it is at a subsidised rate.
So, why are we doing this? To ensure that there is continuity on their own farm. And then we want them to expand those farms. And then we also want them to make the gains they make from here.
They do not just carry the raw materials straight to the buyers’ hands. And this is why the establishment or the revival of the Taraku Mills is being done. Already, people are coming to the table to partner on this.
If we, the state, never use our public funds to revive the Taraku Mills, it would only be the part that cooks the rice but never eats the rice.
So, we want a share in what we spend our money on in the establishment. So, as we bring it back to life, already those that are being attracted, the companies that want to come in and join us on this, already have their documents on the table for us.
So, we have been going through three or four separate companies to see how they can come in to partner with us. I think it is one quick way that our farmers are going to have their full value chain.
You travelled to France with President Bola Ahmed Tinubu. What conversations did you have about Benue’s agricultural potential?
We travelled with Mr President to France. And some French businessman who is conversant with some part of Nigeria was asking why Benue State has so much soybeans, but we are not exporting our soybeans.
So, the simple answer I had given was after a presentation I made. It was that what we need is for us to be able to use every part of this soybean back home.
They can come to us with their own factories and every other form of partnership they want to do. Rather than us trying to struggle with this soybean and take it over there, the value chain remains very limited.
So, we want it at full scale.
Critics sometimes argue that infrastructure does not directly put food on people’s tables. How do you respond?
Is it roads that we eat? No, it is not roads that you eat. But at the same time, intrinsically, you enjoy the roads, and you eat the roads because they have gone through your farms, they have gone through the market square, and then from the produce on the farm they are coming back to the buyer in the town or in some suburban area.It means you are still eating the roads.
But at the same time, a 50-year-old boy who does not have anything to show for, physically, is a problematic child, so he has to augment himself.
We are augmenting the state in the manner that people have already started enjoying the reforms that are here.
Parents are enjoying not paying any school fees for their children from Basic One to Basic Nine because we are using their own money given under the custody of government leadership to take care of this.
So, in other words, we are pinching the pennies to ensure that we do these things.
We are taking care of the primary health system now. If you have malaria, you do not have to leave my village to come all the way to Makurdi to spend three and a half hours coming to treat malaria here.
With the clinic we have, with the hospital we have, with the general hospital we have, we have the primary and then we have the second tier, the general hospital by the same axis.
I think that takes care of some things and it is the same thing with the primary schools and all that.
So, why are we able to do this, initially there was kind of a resistance. If you go back into history, reforms bring resistance, and I think it is part of what even the Federal Government might be suffering from.
So much is done. I just made a pronouncement here that with the much money that the Federal Government is giving us, thank God you have been out there, you have seen that this money is being translated into those projects, into Otukpo Water Works, into the series of roads and the underpasses you are seeing, into the schools, into the hospital systems you are seeing.
And I think it is the only way to go.
Let us talk about the state’s finances. How have federal government allocations and internally generated revenue affected what your administration is able to do?
What the Federal Government gives me is what is being distributed elsewhere as well. So, we all have just a very common share.
In fact, we have so much on the ground, but since the harnessing of what we have has not fully taken its position on the table, we are yet to have 13 per cent derivatives.
I think quite soon we are going to be there. You may hear the announcement on the oil and gas that is found in the state here.
So, once much attention is already given there, not just having a pipeline, work has already begun on harnessing the series of minerals we have, solid minerals we have.
Nigeria has quite a chunk. Benue has a share in that of 43 varied solid minerals, and quite a number are on a commercial basis.
So, once we go in there, we are also going to continue to support.
Our internally generated revenue has been increased again, simply because of the money. The oil subsidy, I think, is the one that is throwing this back to us, throwing much money back to us.
The funds that were being used to ship the oil, I mean, to get the oil in different places, it is now being brought to us directly in this cache of the thing.
We must say it. Previous administrations tell me; I hear what a number of people, including the state here, speak with the media. I read in the papers, I see some clips also on the screens, you know, that the amount of money we are receiving, it is way, way much more than what they were receiving.
With more funds coming to the states, what is the most important issue in managing these resources?
I think, let me try to be very cautious so that I do not make it very personal. The management skills of those funds it is what would be of importance here.
So, if the intent for what we receive is meant to take care of salaries, it is meant to take care of the infrastructure, it is meant to take care of our security, then it simply means the intention of the donour has to be respected.
And in this case, what we receive, it is meant to go; it is not for individual pockets; it is meant for the common good.
So, if you understand the common good, the poor masses, then they must be on the front burner of everything you do, and this is why very good attention is given to this.
Again, I spoke about inspecting what you expect.
The people sent me. If I perform abysmally, then they are not going to look in my direction.
So, I also had to work this, not the fine line, but how to make it in a manner that they know that I am worthy as a messenger.
And this is why I had mentioned pinching the pennies. If we are able to hold ourselves accountable and to govern ourselves, then we will be able to govern also all the resources that come our way for the people.
And that is what makes democracy.
Your relationship with the Federal Government appears to have changed significantly. What has that meant for Benue?
Things had gone sour, really sour. So, the end result was that the state lost so much. People did not have relevance. They did not know what was actually happening from the central government.
So, we had to renew our relationship. And I thank God you even asked. It is superb, quite superb.
And this is why the Federal Government, Mr President, has been quite good to us, the subnationals.
Remember, we are running a federation. We have the federation, then the federal government, then the subnationals in here.
What we receive from our Federation Account, it is what enables us to do what we do.
So, the attention we have given to re-energising our internally generated revenue is what enables us to do what we are doing today and to ensure we are paying without owing anybody.
So, there is a very good relationship here between the Federal Government and us.
And this is why when we are rejoicing, they are here rejoicing with us. When we are mourning, they are also feeling the pinch and they are here with us also to mourn.
What specific benefits has this relationship brought to Benue?
So, why so much attention is it giving us? There are lots of appointments that we enjoy due to this friendship. We did not have that prior to my coming in.
There is so much that the Federal Government is giving because of our position and where we are.
In fact, at the end of the month, we are also going to have to be the state host to the entire nation here on Security Summit.
They are coming over here. Why us? Again, I feel that it is because of this very great relationship.
We are going to represent the entire North Central. Everybody is coming in here. The entire nation is coming in here for us to share ideas, for us to see possible ways of curbing all the insecurities and all that, and then to explore the different dynamics on how these things work.
So, we have this great relationship and we must remember and be grateful again to the President.
Finally, despite the reforms, some people still say the economy is not working. What is your response?
The reforms that are brought in place are bearing fruit, and it is difficult to change a certain fixed mind, to change the status quo, but what is even more permanent is that change itself.
For those who may still want to doubt, those who may still have their agitations or reservations that the economy is not working, the economy in the state is improved.
I must say that it is improved.
If a bag of oranges was sold, for this simple example, for N3,500, people even had to beg for the oranges to be bought. But because we have gained a lot of financial support and chose to establish some factories, there is already a lot of competition for the oranges coming from the farms.So, how would you say it is not spreading?
The poor women out there, we are pushing them. It is their money we are using even to push them.
If you do not pay your child’s school fees for nine solid years, I mean, definitely there is some saving in there for you.
So, it is something new. Reforms are new, but then if you give it patience, if you study it, if you look and look again at the differences, they are dropping bit by bit.
And then you come to realise that reforms are one, the way to go; change, one is another way to go; and then patience, one, it is some basic way to go so that we get everything, not just in part, and not just by bit, but in total.