It is a matter of grave concern the purported indefinite suspension order issued by the illegal Caretaker Chairman of Kwande Local Government Council of Benue State, Revd. Fr. Mark Teryila Hule, against the substantive Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the area, Hon. Terdoo Kenti, and other members of his Executive Committee.
The suspension order which also extended to activities of the ruling party in the area is the very first of its kind known anywhere in the history of democracy in Nigeria, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state observes that it exposes the disdain for democratic norms and leadership incompetence of Governor Hyacinth Alia under whose watch such absurdity is unraveling.
For good measure, the state chapter of the APC has promptly dismissed the action of the Catholic priest masquerading as a caretaker chairman describing it as “null and void”, hence of no consequence, even as the party stated that he is not their card-carrying member and unfit to dabble into the affairs of its administration at any level.
Yet the bizarre incident adds to a series of shameful records being set under the administration of Governor Alia since his coming to power, such as increasingly indicate he is inclined to a suspension of constitutional order and imposition of a dictatorship in the manner of running a Catholic parish where the priest is not subject to censorship or opposition from the laity, but is entitled to a “Yes Father” compliance to all of his actions.
PDP recalls the very caretaker committee under which Revd. Fr. Hule purports to derive power is the first in the history of Benue State to have been announced and inaugurated by a governor without a law enacted by the Legislature to give it name, mode/structure or tenure of office.
This same caretaker committee was also declared as illegal by a series of orders of courts of competent jurisdiction and a resolution of the Senate of Nigeria which all upheld the tenure of the duly elected Executive Council administrations on seat and exercising lawfully mandated tenure of office.
Our great party also recalls the manner of the running of government by Governor Alia without any regard to due process and rule of law, such as the award of contracts running into billions of naira without recourse to extant procurement laws and financial regulations.
This is also a governor who has employed the “we die here” mode of resistance to calls for accountability over how much he has received into the state’s coffers and how he has expended same since his assumption of office.
Such a policy of concealment extends even to keeping secret the contract sum for projects he is executing such as his 16 short streets and the various palliatives packages so far sent to the state by the federal government.
PDP observes that while the bizarre suspension order by Revd. Fr. Hule in Kwande is shocking, it apes precisely the lawless style of his master, the governor, in Makurdi, and the party regrets that this serves to fuel the growing impression that Catholic priests by their command and authoritarian orientation are unsuitable to political leadership under our liberal democratic setting.
