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Senate Minority Leader, Senator Abba Moro, on Monday launched a blistering attack on Governor Hyacinth Alia, accusing the Catholic priest-turned-governor of turning Benue State into a personal empire where laws, due process, and democratic institutions no longer matter.
Speaking from the red chamber during plenary on 1st December 2025, the former Minister of Interior and Benue South senator said the Alia administration has abandoned collective governance and now operates on the whims of one man.
“Mr. President, distinguished colleagues, what we are witnessing in Benue today is the systematic erosion of democracy at the sub-national level,” Moro thundered. “Governor Hyacinth Alia is running Benue State as though it is his private parish. Appointments, contracts, policies – everything is decided by one man and his handful of unelected aides. The State House of Assembly has been rendered redundant, traditional rulers are treated like errand boys, and even party structures have been suffocated.”
The PDP chieftain particularly lampooned what he called the “imperial style” of the governor, citing the recent dissolution of elected local government councils, the controversial handling of the anti-open grazing law, and the alleged selective payment of salaries, and the mass retirement of permanent secretaries as evidence of authoritarian tendencies.
“Benue people did not vote for a monarch in clerical garb,” Moro said. “They voted for a governor who should respect the constitution, uphold the rule of law and carry all stakeholders along. Sadly, what we now have a government that treats dissent as treason and loyalty as the only currency for survival.”
The Minority Leader called on the national leadership of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to urgently call Governor Alia to order before his actions drag the party into deeper crisis in the state.
As expected, the speech has ignited fresh political fire in Benue. While opposition figures and civil society groups have hailed Senator Moro for “speaking truth to power,” supporters of Governor Alia have dismissed the outburst as the ranting of a bitter loser still smarting from the 2023 electoral defeat.
By late evening, several youth groups loyal to the governor had already mobilized counter-protests on social media with the hashtag #LeaveAliaAlone, insisting that the governor’s style, though firm, is exactly what Benue needs to break from the past.
With 2027 gradually appearing on the horizon, today’s salvo from the Senate floor has further deepened the political fault lines in the food basket state, setting the tone for what promises to be an explosive battle ahead.
