OPEN LETTER TO GOVERNOR HYACINTH ALIA: A PRIESTLY FAILURE IN GOVERNANCE AND MORAL DUTY
Dear Rev. Fr. Iormem @HyacinthAlia
I write this letter with a deep sense of sorrow—not just for the people of Benue State, but for the body of Christ to which you once solemnly pledged your life.
Your recent statement, through your Chief Press Secretary @tersoo_kula, warning Mr. @PeterObi or any prominent figure against visiting IDP camps in Benue State for “security reasons,” is not only disgraceful but profoundly revealing.
It speaks volumes—not about the risks of such visits—but about the abject failure of your government to secure the land entrusted to you.
Let me be blunt, yet respectful: your inability to guarantee the safety of visitors is not surprising.
You cannot even guarantee the safety of the citizens you were elected to protect.
Every other week, the soil of Benue is soaked with the blood of innocent people—over a hundred lives lost, again and again, to the savagery of killer herdsmen.
And all the while, you issue statements from a safe distance surrounded by layers of security, rather than confront the root of the terror.
Under your watch, Benue has continued its tragic descent into a permanent humanitarian crisis.
You have turned large swaths of that beautiful state into a depressing landscape of IDP camps—warehouses of suffering—where women, children, and vulnerable men rot away, stripped of dignity and hope.
Instead of working to return them home, you have normalized their displacement. You expand these camps with eerie comfort, as if their existence validates your administration.
You, sir, have become a monument to failure in governance.
Worse still, a colossal shame to the priesthood you once represented.
When you ran for office, many of us believed that your vows—of poverty, humility, and service—would translate into a fierce commitment to the people.
We were wrong. Tragically wrong. You have turned out worse than your predecessors—men without cassocks or collars.
You are proof that one can be trained in the finest seminaries, and still emerge a bigot, a coward, and a disappointment.
Your thinly veiled attempt to block Peter Obi’s visit is not about “security.” It is about fear. It is about hate. And yes, it is about bigotry.
The hostility of your people towards the Igbos is well-documented.
You have made no effort to challenge it. Rather, your administration is complicit in it.
That bigotry, cloaked in bureaucratic excuses, is what informed your effort to dissuade Obi—a man whose compassion has consistently transcended ethnicity and party lines—from visiting fellow Nigerians in distress.
But let me remind you, Rev. Alia: Peter Obi does not need your permission to visit any corner of this nation.
Unless you are bold enough to issue an executive order barring him (which you won’t, because you can’t), you have no authority to stop him. Nigeria is a democracy—not a dictatorship of cowardly priests.
And in any case, Obi does not need your security. He carries with him a different kind of protection: the goodwill of Nigerians across faith, ethnicity, and class.
If he chooses to come to Benue to comfort the displaced, offer support, or simply bear witness to the suffering you’ve failed to alleviate, no amount of posturing from Makurdi will stop him.
Rev. Father Governor, your press statements do not conceal the truth. You are overwhelmed. You are unable. You are unprepared. And worst of all—you are uncaring.
But while your failure may define your tenure, it will not define the spirit of Benue people. Nor will it stop good men from doing what you should have done long ago: stand with the suffering.
Kind regards,
Preacher