TheCable

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Benue says Hyacinth Alia, a priest and governorship hopeful of the All Progressives Congress (APC), has never pulled anyone out of poverty.

Alia had said he joined the governorship race to rescue residents of the state from the “shackles of maladministration”.

“More importantly, I am more charged because I have seen the genuineness in the agitations for me to step in and help salvage the already sorry situation the state has found itself for some time,” he had said.

In a statement on Thursday, Bemgba Iortyom, PDP publicity secretary in Benue, said the governorship hopeful is making “deceptive” promises.

“As a policy, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) avoids engaging aspirants on opposing platforms until they are candidates, yet the party as the sponsoring platform of the incumbent government in the state need to address two issues which have come up for determination from the remarks of Alia,” the statement reads.

“Are Benue people dwelling in the gutter? Is the suspended priest competent to lift them out of the gutter, if indeed they are dwelling there?

“Firstly, that Alia deems Benue people to be living in the gutter isn’t surprising as his current political leader, Senator George Akume, once deemed Samuel Ortom as Minister of State for Trade and Investment and Supervision Minister of Aviation as being in the gutter from where he made him governor.

“It is, therefore, a function of myopia afflicting the opposition party that they tend to see everyone as living in the gutter, particularly when they are making promises at campaigns.

“But then, isn’t it rather the continually deteriorating state of insecurity brought upon the state by APC’s incompetence at the federal level which should be deemed as putting the people under gutter conditions?

“Secondly, is it not merely a manifestation of the deceptiveness Alia has come to be associated with for him to promise to be on a mission to lift the people out of suffering?

“When and where did the suspended Catholic priest ever lift anyone out of suffering?

“Is it the unsuspecting poor masses whom he deceived with gimmicks of healing with salt-filled water which he sold to them and accumulated a personal fortune from same while worsening their health conditions and deepening their poverty?

“Is there anyone anywhere who can come out and show proof publicly that Alia did indeed heal them of any ailment and they are better off therefrom?

“Does Alia have even a single church building project he may point to as having ever completed at any of the stations he served as a priest of the Catholic Church?”

The PDP spokesperson said if the priest could not “honour his vows to the fearsome God Almighty”, he can’t be trusted to honour agreements with “mere mortal men”.

He added that residents of the state “will not be booty to a renegade priest who the church under which he served was constrained to send packing for contumacious behaviour”.