News Editor
From Dooshima Terkura, Makurdi
After two eventful years since the Benue State House of Assembly was inaugurated on June 5, 2023, the Deputy Speaker, Hon Mrs Lami Danladi Lawrence, who is representing Ado Constituency, said the Assembly has been exceptional in the discharge of its responsibilities.
According to her, the past two years has set the 10th Assembly apart from the previous assemblies in terms of providing purposeful representation and services to the people of the state.
In the words “I want to assure you that the 10th Assembly is exceptional from every other Assembly,” she said, attributing the feat to the invaluable support of Governor Hyacinth Alia, whom she described as a “messiah”.
“I will thank God Almighty for sending a Messiah to our dear state. His Excellency has been a source of smile as he has done so much for the 10th Assembly. If you compare this 10th Assembly with the 9th assembly the difference is much.
“During the 9th assembly, the past administration did not give vehicles to the members of the assembly, but in the 10th Assembly today, under the leadership of Rev, Hyacinth Alia, he has given all the members of the 10th Assembly Prado jeep, a jeep that is worth nothing less than a hundred million Naira.
“Also, when you talk about the benefit that the assembly is getting today it will amaze you because it is about hundred percent of what we used to get before. If you come to the assembly complex today, you will see that his excellency has done so much in renovating the assembly complex and the offices.
“Although the project is still ongoing, as of last three weeks we got information from a reliable source that the complete funds for the project has been released to the contractor, so if the contractor has not completed the work it’s not the fault of His Excellency because the funds have already been released to the contractor.
“His Excellency has done so much for the 10th Assembly and we are happy working with him. We are happy not just because of what he is doing for us in the assembly, but what he is doing for the people of Benue state. We are looking at a lot of development today in our dear state. We can now drive smoothly on the state roads all because of our governor who has the feeling of his people at heart.
“We thank him for all he is doing for us, our pensioners, retirees and civil servants are happy, unlike the past administration that have owed them for almost four years without payment and that led to a lot of people losing their lives because they can’t afford money for medication. Today the story is totally different, God has sent the reverend gentleman to come and redeem the people of Benue state. I think the people of Benue state should thank God for the kind of Governor they have. We pray that this victory he have gotten will multiply by 2027.”
It is pertinent to observe that the state Assembly has done very well in the discharge of its legislative duty. So far, it has passed the highest legislations and motions ever in the history of the state. This is in spite of the suspension of some lawmakers, which has been lifted.
On her part, the Deputy Speaker elated for being part of the solution to the decades of years old crisis between the people of Agila and neighboring villages and another from neighboring Ebonyi state
“For years, this problem has been on, a lot of people have tried, a lot of legislators, appointed members have come and tried but they could not really do anything much about it, but during our tenure, God used us to set up a committee and we started following it up. I wrote Honourable Eze Nwachukwu, the member of the House of Representatives representing the community in Ebonyi .
“We are having this crisis for many years. We went to the office and we discussed and he said he is going to see how he can meet with a respected father and chief, Chief Mike Okigbe Onoja to see how we can set up a committee to bring about peace between the Agila and Mngbo people.
“It started like a joke and then the committee was set up. The first meeting was in Otukpo, the second meeting was in Ebonyi state in their Government House, the third meeting was in Agila community and the fourth one was in Umbo. It is a miracle because nobody will ever believe that a war that have taken place for over a hundred and fifty years will just be resolved. We continued to push with the house of reps members with the Ugbo people, we met and discussed, Chief Okigbe Onoja instructed us on what to do and how to go about it.
“For the first time in the history of Ugbo and Agila, today both communities can marry each other. They are living peacefully without any crisis, that have really helped the economy of both the Agila and Umbo people. They can now buy and sell from each other without conflict. That is one of my achievements in the office.”
The lawmaker has also stamped her presence in the community secondary school in Apa Council ward in Ado Local Government by providing water, generator chairs and rehabilitating their toilets and some classrooms .
“Outside the community school in Apa, two other projects are ongoing in Agila community school. They have finished building it, started it from scratch, we have finished building and roofing now. I think from now till Saturday they will be done with the roofing of the school. I also have the intention of building two or three toilets for them after we complete the roofing and the painting. There will be chairs, fans, black boards among others.
“We have done a lot of renovations of boreholes and some that have been abandoned for years. I have renovated about 25 boreholes and I’m still renovating more. The mosque at Utonkon the people cried to me that they needed help in building a mosque. To the glory of God I have completed the mosque with a solar of about 8 panels. There’s light in the mosque, we did it in a very standard way. There’s a promise to put a borehole for them, by the grace of God that project will kick start by August,” the Deputy Speaker said.
One key area of intervention is in the area of empowerment to enable people earn decent living. This has been done by the lawmakers including the Deputy Speaker who said she had provided start up funds to women for small scale businesses, foodstuffs to those in need, and scholarship to the girl child.
“I have adopted a lot of girl children, I have given a lot of scholarships to the girl child and I have more than four girls in the university that started with me from their primary to secondary school. Some of the girls have graduated already and I’m still doing more. I have some who have been given admission to study in the medical line and law, some are in secondary school, primary school and some I gave them scholarship from primary down to secondary school, these are some of the things I have done so far.
“When it comes to empowerment, I have empowered my people with a lot of job opportunities, like the SUBEB jobs that the governor made available, I was given about 45 slots, I didn’t take those slots outside Benue, it was given to the Ador people, they benefited from it and their appointment letter have been given to them. I have empowered about 5 policemen who have gotten jobs.
This army recruitment that just concluded recently, I helped about fourteen youths. When it comes to civil defence and custom I have help our youths in getting jobs. I have just given 3 slots to our youth to get job at the College of Education in Kiyana. I keep pushing and I don’t relent, sometimes I go to the federal offices in Abuja to know what is happening and what our people can benefit from the government, then bring it back home and help our people.”
The Deputy Speaker’s intervention did not end there. She had deployed 16 medical doctors and 28 nurses, and spent over N160 million to provide medical services, including surgery to indigent patients with a lot of trucks.
“The programme took place in Apa Agila, we did two days in Apa Agila and we did two in Akpobi Obioli ward. We went back to Apa Agila again, they attended to almost 800 patients. We also have doctors that gave out eye glasses and treated people who had problems with their eyes. We gave about 250 eye glasses to people and we had malaria drugs and cough syrup for children. There were BP check. They treated nothing less than a thousand plus people. I am sure of the number of people that we operated on, they were more than 20.
“That medical outreach was one of the biggest outreach I have done in Ador local government, people even came from Ebonyi state to benefit. People from the ten council ward of Ado came and benefited. I am planning on doing another for the people of Utonko because they did not benefit from the programme.”
In all, the Deputy Speaker believes that the 10th Benue Assembly is exceptional. “I have never seen an assembly like that before, here we live like one. We have this union before we even won the election, we even have a platform where we always meet ourselves and discuss. That platform has really helped us. We are living together and we work together as a team, I don’t think there will be anything that will make us fight each other.
“We handle things in a mature way before going to the executive chamber. One thing I will assure you is that I don’t see any sign of anybody planning anything like an impeachment to the Governor. But even, it is possible that some bad eggs may do that, even if there is any such plan, they will not succeed, because people like us that are there will never give such support and if we don’t support it, there is no way it will happen.
“The Governor is treating us well to the best of my knowledge. There may be someone complaining, because we can’t get everything a hundred percent. From the little I know, the governor is trying his best for the Assembly. I am happy with the governor and we all support him, nobody have complaints about him, though there are some complaints and they are normal because we can’t get it hundred percent.”She admitted.
