By: Aondoakaa Tersugh Daniel | 11/0602026
There is a conversation happening in Benue that deserves to be stripped of its polite packaging and examined for what it really is. The so-called “masses” who have been celebrating Governor Hyacinth Iormen Alia’s projects are, by credible account, the same constituency that once received salt, vegetable oil, or water from the man during his years of priestly service. That is not a crowd of independent minds. That is a congregation. And congregations tend to celebrate whatever their high priest tells them is worth celebrating.
So when Alia’s name is inserted into conversations about legacy, one must ask the same question that arose when his name appeared on the 2023 APC gubernatorial ballot. How exactly did it get there? Because in both cases, the insertion was not organic. It was engineered.
Let us talk about legacy in Ushongo terms, because Ushongo is where the real standard was set.
Governor Aper Aku governed Benue with a presence that still echoes in infrastructure and institutional memory decades after his time. His name does not require rehabilitation or repackaging. It stands. Justice Kastina Alu, who rose to the position of Chief Justice of the Federation, did not only leave behind a distinguished legal record. He left physical monuments in his hometown, including a police station that bears his legacy in brick and mortar. These are not things that need to be announced during campaign season. They exist independent of any election.
And then there is Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN. Former Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. A man whose record at the highest levels of Nigerian governance was not ceremonial. Aondoakaa is an industrialist in the most concrete sense of the word. His company, Mikap Nigeria Limited, has employed hundreds of Benue indigenes. That is not a ribbon-cutting. That is economic infrastructure with human faces attached to it. That is the kind of legacy that feeds families across Benue long before and long after any election cycle. I have written before about why Aondoakaa is the man for 2027, and everything I am saying now is consistent with that position.
Barr. Pius Ukeyima Akutah PhD also belongs to this conversation as another Ushongo son whose contributions have carried the name of the land. Ushongo has a tradition of producing men of substance, and that tradition is not accidental.
Now here is where Alia’s priestly background becomes more than just a biographical footnote. As someone personally familiar with the administration of vegetable oil in spiritual service, one would reasonably expect him to understand the economic and symbolic weight of the Taraku Mills. That facility once produced vegetable oil of national acclaim. It has been left to deteriorate. Alia, of all people, had both the personal connection to that product and the governmental authority to revive it. He chose instead to invest in water production. Water and vegetable oil. The two staples of his former trade. The irony is almost theological.
The legacy Alia is selling to Benue is largely assembled from smuggled narratives. It does not compare, and it should not be allowed to compare, to the verifiable footprints left by men like Aper Aku, Kastina Alu, and Michael Kaase Aondoakaa.
2027 is not a complicated choice when you clear away the noise. Benue must decide between a man whose legacy was built before he sought power and a man who is constructing his legacy in order to seek power. One of these is real. The other is a project still under construction.
The choice is Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN. There is no reasonable alternative on the table. You either choose Aondoakaa, or you choose Aondoakaa. That is how narrow and how clear this has become.
