Alia unveils 30-year master plan to sustain Benue development, reforms

Benue State Governor Hyacinth Alia has initiated a 30-year development master plan, a move he says is crucial for sustaining the state's ongoing reforms and infrastructure projects. The plan is designed to safeguard the state's development agenda from potential disruption by future administrations and vested interests.

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Reforms present a pushback from those who had enjoyed just a normal, same old status quo. ‘Don’t do this, it was not here, but we still lived and existed.’ So would the Earth stop going round if we do them? The answer is no. But the status quo now becomes a problem.

Alia explained that the long-term vision was necessary because Benue, despite being 50 years old, had never previously established a development master plan capable of ensuring continuity across different leaderships. He highlighted the resistance his administration faced from those who questioned the value of infrastructure investments and sought to maintain the existing system.

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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 and you eat the roads, because they have gone through your farms, they have gone through the market square, and then from the produce on the farm, they are coming back to the buyer in the town or in some suburb area. So it means you are still eating the roads.

"Reforms present a pushback from those who had enjoyed just a normal, same old status quo," Alia said, defending the necessity of his administration's infrastructure drive. He addressed criticism that projects like roads do not directly benefit ordinary residents, explaining that roads are essential for transporting produce from farms to markets, thus indirectly contributing to people's livelihoods.

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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.

The governor emphasized that his administration consulted residents to identify their development priorities, aiming to transform the state from what he described as a "glorified village status" to a "proper status of a cityship." He cited Lagos State as an example of successful long-term planning that outlives individual administrations.

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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, to take us from the so-called glorified village status to the proper status of a cityship.