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In a move that has sent shockwaves through Benue’s already charged political circles, influential stakeholders from Kwande Local Government Area have publicly rejected calls by some of their own kinsmen for the 2027 governorship ticket to be micro-zoned to Kwande, instead throwing their full weight behind Governor Hyacinth Alia to run for a second term.
Speaking at a crowded press conference in Makurdi on Monday 18 November 2025, the group, represented by Rt. Hon. John Moughsha, dismissed recent endorsements of Kwande candidates by elders like Atsaga Anemba and Vincent Uji as “purely selfish misrepresentation” that does not reflect the true feelings of the Kwande people.
Moughsha was categorical: any attempt to push a Kwande son or daughter for 2027 is dead on arrival. “Any endorsement of Kwande son or daughter for 2027 governorship election in Benue State is null and void and of no consequence,” he declared, insisting that Governor Alia must be allowed to complete eight years in office before power returns to the Tiv intermediate bloc in 2031.
The stakeholders argued that Alia’s people-centred style of governance, regular payment of salaries, pensions and gratuities, massive road construction, and aggressive investment in agriculture have restored public confidence in government in a way no administration has done in recent memory. To derail him now, they said, would amount to cutting short a project the entire state is benefiting from.
They accused the pro-2027 Kwande agitators of speaking only for their narrow political interests rather than the collective good of the Kwande and Ushongo people, and warned that the bloc would resist any attempt to divide them along selfish lines.
“Kwande people are not ungrateful,” Moughsha stressed. “We know what this governor is doing. We will support him to finish strong so that when it is our turn in 2031, we take over from a position of strength, not from the ruins of a disrupted tenure.”
The press conference comes barely weeks after some prominent Kwande elders openly declared that the zone should produce the next governor after Alia, citing the traditional power-sharing understanding within the Tiv-speaking JEKV zones. Today’s rebuttal by an equally powerful bloc of Kwande stakeholders has effectively fractured that narrative and handed Governor Alia one of the strongest early endorsements for 2027 from outside his own senatorial district.
With Kwande and Ushongo together forming one of the largest voting blocs in Benue North-East, the message is clear: Governor Alia’s performance has begun to transcend the usual ethnic and zonal calculations that have defined Benue politics for decades.
If other intermediate groups follow Kwande’s lead and prioritise continuity over rotation, the 2027 conversation may already be over before it truly begins.
