Benue State Governor Hyaconth Alia on Thursday said that the state is mobilizing massively to deliver one million votes for President Bola Tinubu in the 2027 general election.
Governor Alia who was represented by his Deputy Samuel Ode stated this while escorting the Presidential Communications Team, led by the Special Adviser to the President on Information and Stratgy Bayo Onanuga, on a tour of federal and state infrastructure projects in Makurdi as part of a nationwide media tour. The tour is being executed in the Renewed Hope Ambassadors project ahead of next years’ election.
Ode tied local development projects to the planned political support, which is explained will attract to mobilize supporters
According to the Deputy Governor, the administration of Governor Alia would mobilize the state executive council and the broader electorate to “actualize” a pledge the governor made earlier this year that Benue would back President Tinubu with a six-figure turnout.
Asked what Benue would offer in return for the federal government’s projects and interventions, Ode pointed to the governor’s promise.
He said “I think my responsibility as Deputy Governor is to make sure that I mobilise the Executive Council and the people of Benue State in their large numbers to actualise that promise.
Earlier in the visit, at the newly completed high-level interchange in Makurdi, Ode credited the Tinubu administration’s recent increases in federation-account allocations to states as the primary financial engine behind an expanding slate of local infrastructure projects.
He noted, “That allocation, which has multiplied, is what we are utilising for the benefit of the people of Benue State. It is their commonwealth, and so we want them to see in real terms what development is. What you see here is a prudent utilisation of the funds which are coming from the federation account, which have increased since this government of Tinubu came into being.”
The Deputy Governor also described the High-Level Interchange, built on the site of what was formerly known as the High-Level Roundabout, as a central traffic hub connecting four major arterial roads in the state capital.
“This interchange connects four major arterial roads. We have the road coming from here, that’s the Remi Tinubu Road, which connects all the way back to the corridor moving from Abuja to Enugu.
“We also have the road that goes to the Benue Printing and Publishing Company, the road coming from Government House, the Police Headquarters, the DSS headquarters and the Central Business District, and the road going to Wurukum, which connects to the overhead bridge being constructed by the Federal Government,” he said.
Ode however declined to give a precise cost figure for the project, saying it remained ongoing.
Director of Civil Engineering at the Benue State Ministry of Works, Housing and Urban Development, Abraham Wombo, disclosed that Phase One of the interchange had cost N6.9bn.
He said the project, awarded to Powerhouse Nigeria Limited in February 2024 with an initial 12-month timeline later extended by six months, had significantly reduced accidents at what was previously one of Makurdi’s most dangerous roundabouts.
Wombo explained, “It was an ordinary roundabout where accident cases were recorded on a regular basis: deaths, injuries, damaged vehicles. Since we’ve started using the upgraded interchange, we have recorded fewer accident cases, and gridlock has also been reduced.”
While at the Wurukum Overhead Bridge, a federal project forming Phase Two of the Akwanga-Makurdi Road linking Abuja to Ninth Mile in Enugu State, Ode said the state government had fulfilled all its obligations, including compensation for demolished structures and environmental impact assessments, to enable the China Harbour Engineering Company-led project to proceed.
The Federal Controller of Works in Benue State, Mukaila Danladi, said the project was being funded 85 per cent through an Exim Bank loan and 15 per cent through state counterpart funding, with 265 kilometres already completed to binder course despite the rainy season slowing earthwork.
He projected the contractor would deliver the project by December 2027, ahead of the original January 2028 deadline.
At the Buruku Bridge, Danladi disclosed that the 854-metre dual bridge, being constructed by Setraco, had completed all substructure work, including piles and pier erection, with precast beams awaiting installation once flood waters recede.
The bridge, linking Buruku, Logo, Katsina-Ala and Ukum local government areas through to Taraba State, is expected to be completed by December 2027.
Officials on the tour also stopped at the Food Basket Breweries, a state-government-backed brewery producing the Ziva beer and malt brands.
Plant Manager, Adoje Emmanuel, said the facility had a production capacity of 5,000 hectolitres in two shifts and currently employed over 1,000 direct and indirect staff, with plans to expand to nine product lines before the end of the year.
Ode said the project, initiated by Alia, was a deliberate effort to revive Benue’s beverage manufacturing sector more than three decades after the establishment of the original Benue Breweries Nigeria Limited under the State’s first civilian Governor, Mr. Aper Aku.
