Daniel Onjeh, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the Benue South senatorial district, has issued a stern warning to political actors against misrepresenting Governor Hyacinth Alia's recent statements regarding the deteriorating security situation in Benue State.
In a statement released on Tuesday, Onjeh expressed deep concern over what he described as deliberate efforts to distort the Governor's comments during his June 6 appearance on Channels Television's Politics Today program.
"The Governor's remarks were clear and unambiguous. It is regrettable that some politicians and media houses are taking his words out of context in order to score cheap political points," Onjeh stated.
Dual Security Challenges in Benue
According to Onjeh, Benue State is currently grappling with two distinct forms of insecurity. The first involves indigenous banditry driven primarily by local criminal elements, while the second consists of attacks by foreign militias, allegedly of Fulani origin, whose objective appears to be the occupation of ancestral lands.
He emphasized that politicizing or ethnically framing the governor's remarks only serves to detract from the real threats facing the state and inadvertently emboldens criminal actors.
Political Motivations Behind Misrepresentations
The senatorial candidate accused Governor Alia's political opponents of weaponizing insecurity in what he described as a desperate attempt to destabilize the APC-led administration in Benue State.
"They lost at the Appeal Panel that upheld the election of APC local government chairmen. They failed to hijack the House of Assembly. They even lobbied for the withholding of local government allocations. Now, they want to engineer chaos to call for a state of emergency. It's all part of a coordinated effort to remove Governor Alia through the back door," Onjeh alleged.
Call for Stronger Legislative Action
Onjeh also called on the National Assembly to enact tougher penalties for terrorism and banditry, including life imprisonment or capital punishment, to serve as a deterrent to both perpetrators and their sponsors.
"It is not enough to arrest criminals only for them to be released days later. This practice undermines public trust and discourages whistleblowers," he warned.
The APC candidate's statements come amid growing concerns about the security situation in Benue State, which Governor Alia has previously described as terrorism rather than mere farmer-herder conflicts.
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