Good day, Your Excellency.

There is so much on your table right now: Invasions, invitations, mass killings, mass burials, press conferences, condemnations, praises, etc. Still, I hope this long Open Letter meets you in a good mood so you may read it.

And since you are faced with the unending trauma of mass murders and the ugly spectacle of mass burials roundabout, do accept my heartfelt condolences, Sir. (And this is a good place to also send my condolences to the all the bereaved families all over Benue state. May God comfort you and give your departed loved ones eternal rest).

I am not a fan of Open Letters, but once in a while I write them. And it’s not for fun – it’s only when I see the need, as now, to join serious conversations in the market-square.

But first, let me introduce myself. I am a Tiv man, Benue state citizen and a good governance advocate by name Simon Imobo-Tswam. I am a concerned party in the Benue Project. It is this concern that keeps summoning me into the public square to raise my voice. And whether I do this as a journalist, biographer, media consultant or public affairs specialist – the aim is always this: to see Benue become a better place.

So, why this Open Letter? And why now?

It is my surest bet of beating redtape and getting it across to you, and quickly too. The times call for urgent action.

Let me say upfront that I neither campaigned for you nor voted for you. I am only a latter-day convert. And the conversion is on account of your salutary first steps. You are not staggering or wobbling. Plus, politics is over. It’s now time for governance.

Your surefootedness assures me that you have a vision, that you know where you are going. And with civil servants and senior citizens smiling every 23^rd, I know where you are taking Benue is a good place.

But Warren Bennis says vision is not enough – he says leadership is “the capacity to translate a vision into reality.”

So, while we applaud your initial salutary steps, we implore “the People’s Governor” to constantly return to the words of Warren Bennis. Eight years may appear like a long time, but in previous dispensations, we have seen them fizzle out like eight months!

Your Excellency, at the Federal level and elsewhere in the country, if you want a job done well, people tell you to give it to a Benue man. This is because three words define the Benue brand: Efficiency, results and consistency.

This is why it is comforting that you have assembled a capable cabinet/team that continues to interpret your vision, execute and communicate it for the greatest good of the greatest number. Your media team is particularly outstanding.

Sir, there is work to be done. Benue needs change, both in its followership mentality and its leadership recruitment processes. She needs to catch up with the rest of progressing Nigeria. Our dear state needs to break away from the malaise of business-as-usual politics. In one word, Benue is sick, and needs a physician.

Thankfully, the specialist in Healing Masses is here in active superintendence. God has presented you with the historic opportunity to change the sorry narrative.

The task before you, therefore, is not just a political mandate, but a sacred one. If you get it right, through your capable stewardship, Benue may yet reclaim the promise of her great destiny. Conversely, if you miss it, Benue would see, yet again, the betrayal of another hope; the crushing, once more, of a great expectation.

Your Excellency, sir, let the truth be told, and it is hereby told: Benue has underperformed, and continues to trudge below the expectations of the founding-fathers. It remains a backward, civil service state nearly 50 years after its creation.

The state once had the spark of an industrial takeoff under the Aper Aku administration. But that spark was extinguished in the years following, save for the brief superintendence of late Fada Moses Adasu.

Till this day, Benue people are still wondering if the abandonment of the Aku legacy was/has been due to executive myopia, executive vacuity or the advent of quota-system governors.

Our politics is the still the Prebendal type. And sadly, it is the biggest industry. But the big minus is that the industry employs only a few. It, thus, profits only a rotund and sybaritic minority.

Before your advent, the issue of salaries, pensions and gratuities seemed like rocket science. Since no one understood the Math of it, resolving the matter became an albatross. But as at today, that inscrutable knot has become history! You may not know it, but you have halted the premature march of many senior citizens to the great beyond.

And civil servants too – they now proudly identify themselves at public gatherings without the twinges of shame or the feelings of self-consciousness. But beyond wages and entitlements, Benue state is pulsating with infrastructural development.

But, Your Excellency, not everyone is happy with this. The leading elite want a shackled Benue that continues to serve and service only very narrow interests. While its strategic goal is economic parasitism, members continue use “my people,” “my people” as a convenient political slogan!

This is an ugly outcome of Benue politics being wedded perennially to the spoils-system otherwise known as the Mngishim factor! Your sacred duty as governor at this material time is to break this unholy wedding where the elite serve as sponges. Let the economy grow; and let the people breathe!

This is what Gov. Adasu tried to do in his brief tour of gubernatorial duty. The wisdom in that is evidenced in the achievements he left behind! Your Excellency must have the courage to do it too, and comprehensively so, if he wants to make a difference. What one Fada can do, another Fada can also do it.

Elsewhere, people see politics is a means to an end i.e. a vehicle to power. And once they access that power, they use it to drive social change, to reconstruct society or fast-track development. In doing that, they make man the focus of that development. They focus on dispensing the greatest good to the greatest majority.

In our state, sadly, leading politicians see things strictly through the linear lenses of politics, power and spoils. They hoard the greatest good for the minimal few!

This is where the Mngishim factor comes in. For non-Tiv speakers, Mngishim (singular, Ingishigh) are Garden Eggs. Mngishim ma shin kungugh (Garden Eggs in the backyard) is a term that entered the Benue political lexicon with the return of constitutional rule.

In the Tiv traditional setting, the architecture is planned such that there is always a garden in the backyard. And that’s where vegetables, including Garden Eggs, are planted. And the woman of the house can always dash there, night or day, to pluck ANYTHING at will: no questions asked. It’s the one place in the Tiv family setting where looting is permitted!

So, the Mngishim factor is all about stomach infrastructure. But it’s not the community’s stomach – it’s the stomach of the few, those with the stakes!

This is why in over two decades of governance chiefly superintended by Tiv sons, Benue has continued to “wobble and shuffle,” like Or-myande, development-wise.

There are no functional industries, Sir. Yams and oranges continue to waste. The state capital has no potable water – even though it sits on the banks of the great River Benue. Makurdi has no streetlights and intra-state roads are deathtraps!

Your Excellency, this is the narrative that Benue people recruited you to change. And they chose you over Engineers, Professors, Surveyors and Lawyers after doing their Due Diligence. Just as when they chose Fada Adasu, they rejected “the-business-as-usual aspirants and chose the business-unsual candidate. You cannot afford to fail. And this is why you deserve the support of all – APC, PDP, the LP, SDP, the NLC, NANS, PFN, CAN as well as market-women, senior citizens…and, indeed, all stakeholders in the Benue Project.

It Is early in the day, but the key performance indicators are good. Benue workers have become worthy of their wages again. The governor has restored the dignity of our senior citizens. The state is pulsating as Benue is becoming a giant construction site.

Everywhere, work is in progress, and the chorus is that “Alia Doo.” It can only get better from here.

The people appreciate this. And from Adikpo to Utonkon; and from Aliade to Vandeikya, it has been panegyrics upon panegyrics. But the masses have no access to the mass media, so the Alia-Doo music is not being heard loudly enough on Radio/TV or read widely enough in the papers. What dominates the news is Alia bashing.

But, as a visionary on a mission, you know better. And no one, I believe, should be able to distract you from your reformist and purposeful sure-footedness.

It Is gratifying that so far, you have refused: to succumb to political blackmail, to be cowed by media terrorism or to bow to sophomoric intimidation – which comes in different forms, faces and guises.

This is why in the face of the well-orchestrated opposition (and sometimes mischievous antics, both without and within), you continue to take measured, purposeful and well-calibrated steps forward… towards a New Benue.

And we see that as a big plus that is worthy of commendation and recommendation. A man who came to Reform and Repair cannot easily find accommodation with those who deformed and despoiled the state! And as someone who came to solve the problems, Benue people do not expect you to become part of the problem! And, so far, you are on track.

Your Excellency, sir, you are a big man. Benue is of strategic importance in the politics of Nigeria. This why any candidate who wins Benue secures himself the presidency. And nothing happens here that escapes Nigeria’s eyes or ears. This is why our votes are as dear to Nigeria as our fertile and well-watered land. It’s the foregoing that makes you a big man. And big men carry big burdens.

And the Chan Master, Fuchan Yuan, has theorised that “There are three essentials of effective leadership i.e. Humility, clarity and courage.”

You need humility to acknowledge your fallibility as a man; you need the clarity to know exactly when or where you have made mistakes; and you need the courage say so. There is no need to overflog this.

And you have been able to record the achievements you have so far made with a tight lid on the public purse. That is prudence. But good as this is, it is a double-edged sword. On one hand, the tight lid enables you to invest in the people via public infrastructure; on the other hand, however, it alienates you from putative landlords.

Perhaps, while not returning to Aju-waya, His Excellency may moderate the grip? The street language is that: “Na at all at all wey no good.” The cries are loud, and truth be told: they are from top-to-bottom.

Your Excellency, this shows that there is no perfection with human work nor will one man’s effort satisfy all. It also means you may need to fine-tune things . . . like consult more, for instance. Democracy is, after all, about inclusion.

And I appeal to all Benue people to more tolerant of the governor’s mistakes, both real and supposed, especially where comments on security issues are concerned. The governor is under immense pressure. Plus, English is still a foreign language to us, and, sometimes, the things we (want to) say don’t come out the way we intended. Experts call it Noise. May we hear the message above the din of communication noises. This is a plea. I believe, going forward, the governor will be more temperate.

It's great to hear your unequivocal stand on the Open Grazing Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law, a great legacy of the Samuel Ortom administration.

With the herdsmen invasion getting more serious now, it is incumbent upon the state government to take a decisive stand.

One of such should be to urgently consult well-meaning citizens across party lines, possibly via town-hall meetings. The outcomes of the meetings will determine the decisions that you take on the renewed invasion – be it short-term, mid-term and long-term.

Benue State is called the “FOOD BASKET OF THE NATION;” not because of the meat we produce but because of the variety of food crops we produce by tilling the soil. We are not only married to our ancestral lands, the land is our economy, our life. It will be difficult, even counter-productive, for farming activities and open grazing by herdsmen to co-exist.

Since agriculture is big business and crop-farming is native to Benue, Nigeria ought to look at the economic concept of location and localisation and of industries more attentively. We may be missing something in “robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

In the general, Your Excellency, keep doing the four things that you are observed to be doing: Keep a tight lid on the vault. Keep up the momentum of public service. Stay connected to the people. And keep looking up to the One who bears the burden of government upon His able shoulders.

Finally, let me end this letter with the words of my namesake, Simon Sinek, who has said: “Great leaders are not the strongest, they are the ones who are honest about their weaknesses. The great leaders are not the smartest; they are the ones who admit how much they don’t know. The great leaders can’t do everything; they are the ones who look to others to help them. Great leaders don’t see themselves as great; they see themselves as human.”

•Imobo-Tswam, a retired newspaper editor and public affairs analyst, sent this letter from Abuja.

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