By: Aondoakaa Tersugh Daniel | 11/06/2026

There is a certain desperation that comes over a man when he finally sees the writing on the wall and cannot erase it. Governor Hyacinth Iormen Alia is at that point. And rather than govern, he has chosen to fight.

Before now, Alia turned his attention to his predecessor, Chief Samuel Ortom, mobilising committees and panels to investigate the Ortom administration, hoping to drag the former governor through the mud and emerge looking righteous. The strategy collapsed under its own weight. Nobody paid serious attention to it. The noise faded. And the irony that stung the loudest was this: the same Samuel Ortom, whom Alia tried desperately to discredit, had the foresight and the capacity to construct an asphalt road in Vandeikya, the very local government that produced Alia, the sitting governor who cannot point to one completed road project in that same community.

Now, having failed to bury Ortom, Alia has reached deeper into his political hat. This time, he has pulled out the ICPC. His administration has orchestrated the filing of complaint before the anti-corruption agency against Mikap Nigeria Limited, the company owned by Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa SAN, the PDP gubernatorial candidate and the man that every reading of Benue’s 2027 political weather positions as Alia’s successor in waiting. Let us be honest about what this is. This is not anti-corruption. This is panic wearing the costume of governance.

Here is what makes Alia’s gambit particularly revealing. Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa founded Mikap Nigeria Limited. Chief Gabriel Suswam, who is now a celebrated ally and political bride to Alia himself, founded Ashi Rice and the broader Ashi Conglomerates. Both companies were established in the same year. Both companies, at different points, supplied rice to the Benue State Government. Both exist within the same commercial and regulatory universe. Yet when Chief Alia went searching for targets at the ICPC, Suswam’s Ashi Rice was not summoned. The Ashi Conglomerates were not disturbed.

That selective amnesia tells the full story. Alia is not fighting corruption. He is fighting competition. He is fighting his own fear.

Mikap Nigeria Limited is not some obscure shell operation. It is an award winning company in Nigeria with a verifiable business record. Attaching an ICPC invitation to its name is intended to do one thing: soil the image of Aondoakaa SAN ahead of an election that Alia can already see he is losing. It is a political instrument dressed in the language of accountability, and the Benue voter is not obligated to be deceived by it.

There is a perception that Alia’s so-called legacy companies may have been threatened by the international recognition that Mikap Nigeria Limited has earned. Aondoakaa’s company was among 131 companies from 23 states of the federation to receive the prestigious ARSO Quality Mark Award, conferred by the African Organisation for Standardisation and certified by the Standards Organisation of Nigeria. Of those 131 companies, Mikap Nigeria Limited received Grade 1, the highest classification in that entire award cycle. Contrast that with ZEVA, which plasters its branding on a brewed product assembled elsewhere and has received no recognition beyond Makurdi. If envy has a face in Benue State today, it is wearing Alia’s expression.

That same envy is the force that has driven the prestigious Benue State University to her knees while Alia pours energy and attention into promoting the university he founded in his hometown. This is not governance. This is a man protecting his ego at the expense of a state.

Many who watched Alia step into public life with the language of a man of God have privately nursed a growing suspicion. This ICPC move against Aondoakaa has turned that private whisper into a public question. If the governor’s conscience is clean, why the selectivity? Why does the probe go only as far as the man standing between him and a second term?

There is also the matter that Alia himself cannot afford to open. His own administration’s record on contract handling and financial transparency is not one that invites scrutiny from a man of courage. The allegations that trail his government’s procurement processes and contract awards are not whispers. They are documented concerns that are growing louder with time. When the season of accountability finally arrives for Benue, and it will, Alia will not be exempted simply because he held the executive pen.

What Alia has done by firing first is actually a gift to Aondoakaa and to the historical record. When Aondoakaa returns fire in 2027, nobody should call it a witch-hunt. Nobody should frame it as persecution or political score-settling. Alia drew first blood. He opened this account. Whatever accountability comes his way when the Alia administration is eventually sitting on the other side of power will be a direct consequence of the aggression he chose today.

A frightened man does frightened things. Alia has confirmed what the 2027 election numbers already suggested. He knows what is coming. And he is not ready for it.