By Bridget Ikyado
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC for the 2023 Benue gubernatorial election, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia has strongly condemned what he calls politics of destruction and called for brotherliness and issue-driven campaigns.
This is contained in a statement by Isaac Uzaan ,Media Aide to Rev Fr Dr Hyacinth Alia on Monday August 8 when he stopped by to greet his people and also witness the level of destruction done at his campaign office in Gboko by some youths perceived to be from the other party.
He roundly condemned the attack on his office, describing it as politics of yesterday and called for a new thinking and new ideologies that will transform Benue State and make life better for the people, adding that they only have differences in ideologies which must not take them to extremism.
“We only have differences in ideologies and our differences must not take us to extremism. Let’s do politics with a difference. We still share the same blood and we are still making the struggle for the betterment of the state. Therefore, we cannot set out to destroy the other group, to destroy people’s lives, to destroy people’s property.
This should not ever be permitted at all. We are not supposed to do politics of calumny, politics of destruction. We are only expected to be brotherly and all our politicking must be issue-based. We are in a sorry state, we should be thinking about what we must do for our people”.
He called on stakeholders and elders across party divides to be progressive minded and always engage the youths in healthy activities that will significantly benefit their lives and the lives of the people around them.
“We are an agrarian state, but why is it that we don’t have farmers who are earning their lives on the farm? Why is it that parents are unable to pay school fees of their children? Why is it that our parents are sick and our loved ones are dying like chickens?
“They can’t afford Panadol in the hospital.Why is it that public institution are all collapsing?
“These are issues-based elements we should be talking about not to being very destructive. This should never be accepted at all.”
“We cannot afford another wasted years. We cannot afford this sort of politicking. You coach little guys, our children to go out there and destroy people’s property and lives. That should not be accepted,”he said.
He appealed to the youth to make use of their common sense and tell those who send them to go and destroy another person’s property to send their very own children to be in the front.
Fr. Alia continued, “It is my appeal to the youth to be more reasonable, to be more calculative, and to be more thoughtful about their own lives; what they can contribute to the state and not what they can destroy in the state.
We are already a number of feet in the pothole, all we need to be doing at this stage is to see how we can get up”.
“I’m a bridge builder. I’m coming as someone who is going to make a difference. This is politics of yesterday. We cannot continue like this.
We need to do something that can put us in a new pedestal. We need to be going ahead. We are a new generation, new thinking, new ideologies and we must have new plans in place”.
Earlier, the state woman leader of the Alia Possibility Network who donated the building for the office, Mrs Esther Inenger, said she has been under threat of attack and was physically assaulted at Gboko Main Market by some youths perceived to be from the other party divide.
She explained that the youths who went to the office did not only destroy the billboards but also carted away with twelve plastic chairs, two tables and some valuables.