Governor Hyacinth Alia of Benue State’s disengagement of his commissioners and the Chief of Staff may be a precursor to the implementation of the unwritten peace agreement entered into with the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, it has been learnt.

In a statement by the Chief Press Secretary, Tersoo Kula, the governor appointed a former two-term Attorney-General of the state and Commissioner for Justice, Moses Atagher, as his new Chief of Staff to replace Paul Biam, an erstwhile state secretary of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and ex-Majority Leader of the Benue State House of Assembly.

The governor did not offer a reason for his decision, announced at the close of the 12th meeting of the Benue State Executive Council, but inside sources told The Guardian that the swift move was in line with the terms of the peace meeting between the governor and his estranged political godfather.

The duo have been locked in an intense political battle for control of the state structure of the APC, which has broken into two factions, one led by Austin Agada, a loyalist of the SGF, and the other by Benjamin Omale, an ally of the governor.

The acknowledgement was affirmed by the recent appointments into governing councils of some federal institutions, as announced by his Special Adviser on Communications, Bayo Onanuga.

It was gathered on good authority that the next phase of implementation of the peace deal would be to rejig the composition of the House of Assembly leadership, among others.

It was learnt that the SGF had insisted that the former Chief of Staff must be eased out for engineering the defeat of his preferred candidate for the position of Speaker, and also for allegedly ridiculing him in public. (The Guardian)