A newly formed coalition drumming up support for President Bola Tinubu’s 2027 re-election bid has reopened the old power tussle in Benue State, setting Governor Hyacinth Alia’s loyalists against supporters of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Senator George Akume.
The Benue Strategic Alliance for Tinubu/Shettima 2027, unveiled by figures aligned with Akume and former Governor Samuel Ortom, says it seeks to broaden support for Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima across party lines.
However, the state’s All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Tinubu/Alia 2027 Campaign Council view it as a rival structure that could weaken Governor Alia’s own re-election effort.
The dispute centres on whether support for the President can be separated from support for the Governor.
The alliance’s Director-General, Akange Audu, said the group is a “political lobby and mobilisation platform,” not a faction seeking control of the APC, and includes estranged APC members as well as stakeholders from other parties.
“It is therefore important to distinguish between supporting President Tinubu and supporting Governor Alia,” Audu said.
“These are two different political choices, and one should not be made a condition for the other”, he added.
The alliance says its backers include elected APC officials at state, local-government and ward levels, three senators, 10 members of the House of Representatives, and several members of the Benue State House of Assembly.
It also says its ranks include politicians who helped Alia win office in 2023 but remain aligned with Akume.
At a news conference in Makurdi, Richard Asema, Director-General of the Tinubu/Alia 2027 Campaign Council, rejected the alliance and accused senior APC figures, including Akume and Water Resources Minister Joseph Utsev, of participating in an arrangement that threatened party unity and the Governor’s second-term bid.
The state APC said Benue’s party did not need an outside alliance to win in 2027 and urged members involved in the coalition to return to the party’s mainstream leadership under Governor Alia.
“The party observes that this ‘Strategic Alliance’ is populated by some members of the APC, some of whom are holding senior positions in the Federal Government,” Asema said.
Audu dismissed the allegations as “unfortunate, misleading and politically counterproductive,” arguing that the Governor’s campaign was using Tinubu’s re-election as a tool of political pressure.
He said the alliance’s supporters should be welcomed as a way to expand the President’s base, not treated as enemies because they do not back Alia.
“Why should an organisation mobilising thousands of people for President Tinubu suddenly become an enemy simply because it does not subscribe to Governor Alia’s political interests?” Audu said.
Terver Akase, Media Director for the Aondoakaa/Ogbenjuwa Campaign Council, echoed that criticism on Facebook, asking whether those mobilizing for the President had suddenly become a problem because of rival political calculations in Benue.
The confrontation extends a rift between Alia and Akume that began after the 2023 governorship election and has now entered its third year.
The latest dispute suggests that, even as both camps publicly profess loyalty to Tinubu, they remain divided over who controls the APC’s political machinery in Benue ahead of the 2027 elections.
For the Presidency, the dispute presents a practical challenge: a state-level campaign effort intended to broaden support has instead exposed competing centers of power within the ruling party.
