Benue State Governor, Hyacinth Alia, has announced a 30-year development master plan aimed at ensuring continuity in the state’s development projects and reforms beyond his administration.
Alia disclosed this on Friday during a media parley at the Government House in Makurdi, following a three-day tour of federal and state infrastructure projects led by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Strategy, Bayo Onanuga.
The governor said the long-term plan was designed to prevent changes in government from disrupting ongoing development initiatives and to protect the state’s development agenda from vested interests.
According to him, Benue, which is marking its 50th anniversary as a state, had never had a comprehensive development plan capable of guiding successive administrations.
“Benue is 50 years old this year, and in those 50 years, we’ve had a series of leaderships that came in and out.
“As a state, do we have a development master plan? The answer is no, we didn’t,” Alia said.
He explained that his administration consulted residents across the state to identify their actual needs and priorities before developing the plan.
“We had to go down to the trenches to ensure that this is what the market woman is needing, this is what the farmers are desiring, and this is what everybody in the state truly seeks to have,” he said.
Alia said the plan was expected to ensure that successive governments continued with established development priorities rather than abandoning existing projects whenever there was a change of administration.
“At Benue at 50, we began a 30-year master plan to ensure that even after power is changed, the same developmental dynamics are still kept, the same vision is being shared, and the same mission is being embarked upon through this developmental plan,” he said.
The governor also defended his administration’s emphasis on infrastructure, particularly road construction, against arguments that such projects did not provide direct benefits to residents.
“Is it roads that we will eat? No, it is not roads that you will eat. But at the same time, intrinsically, you will enjoy the roads,” Alia said.
He explained that roads connect farms to markets and enable farmers to transport their produce to consumers, thereby contributing indirectly to food production and economic activity.
Alia cited Lagos State as an example of the benefits of sustained long-term development planning, saying the state’s transformation over the years was linked to the continued implementation of its development plans.
He said his administration was also prioritising durability in projects to reduce the burden on future governments.
“If we have taken care of the primary healthcare, and we have already embarked on the secondary tier of the health system, subsequent administrations will have less concentration on those because they are fundamentally and diligently done in a manner that durability is guaranteed,” he said.
On the sustainability of projects such as the revived Taraku Mills and the Oju-Awajir Road, the governor said the government was relying on planning, community involvement and private-sector partnerships to protect the investments.
Speaking specifically about Taraku Mills, Alia blamed the collapse of the former facility on poor management and the perception that public assets were available for personal appropriation.
“It’s quite unfortunate that we had lost Taraku Mills. That arm of commerce had died because people felt it was just a common cake, get your knife, cut a chunk, and then you leave. But at the end of the day, everybody lost,” he said.
He said the revived factory would instead be supported through farmer cooperatives and partnerships with the private sector to ensure its sustainability.
Alia identified resistance to reforms and what he described as a culture of underperformance as major obstacles to his administration’s development agenda.
“You cannot keep doing one thing all the time and expect a different result,” he said.
The governor said despite financial constraints, his administration remained committed to implementing reforms that would improve the state’s long-term development.
He urged residents to be patient with the reforms, arguing that their benefits would become clearer with time..
