Eugene Aliegba: keenly watched for Gov 2015
Michael Atovigba
The stage may have been set for the next Benue governor to emerge. On the watch is Dr Eugene Aliegba, a political scientist and grassroots mobilizer of all time.
Dr Eugene Aliegba is a cabinet member of the Dr Gabriel Suswam led Benue State administration. He holds the environment portfolio, presently.
A don with Benue State University, Dr Aliegba hails from Gwer West LGA. He is a highly prized public servant, having served in six key ministries since 2007.
Only a highly prized government official could be so assigned to so many ministries to hold brief for the chief executive. It goes to tell of Dr Aliegba’s attribute as a utility personality. Observers say Eugene Aliegba is a pragmatist, why he easily posts results. He is noted to being a believer in providing supervision after policies may have been put in place.
Aliegba has held the education, works, agriculture, rural development and environment portfolios in the past six years. With that, he has acquired very vast experience of governance at the state level. This makes him a ready made governorship material for 2015.
In all the areas that he has served since 2007, Aliegba has posted worthy results. He is thus associated with the highly rated records of achievement of the Dr Gabriel Suswam administration, including infrastructure development in all sectors and peace. Dr Aliegba is said to be one of the vocal and respected voices of the Dr Suswam’s executive committee which have posted sound policies and programmes of governance. Stakeholders posit that the state needs such a sound mind to lead it by 2015.
Notwithstanding his tall credentials, Dr Aliegba is always available to all and sundry, to the highly and lowly placed of the society. He listens and responds to any member of the public that has something to say. Thus at any public function he normally pulls the crowd. He is rated as being detribalized and a guber candidate to watch. For instance, in his undergraduate days at Zaria, he reportedly stood firm behind Prof. Daniel Saror as vice chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University when many others had turned the heat on Saror.
Aliegba has always showed he is gregarious: he is a crowd puller of all time and has for this reason, won the hearts of many. It was this attribute that made him win student union elections at departmental and college levels. As a senior lecturer and many time commissioner, Dr Aliegba has neither changed nor blocked his phone number, and he has always picked calls from all and sundry. And the quantum of calls that now come to his handset is high on the increase, owing to popularity.
His view of governance is for the government to provide the people with the fundamentals of life, to enable everyone who cares to realize his or her potentials. These fundamentals include basic necessities and utilities like water, power, roads, education, farm inputs and security.
Aligba is largely thought of by many stakeholders to be the heir apparent to Benue Govt House, who may carry on with and improve on the development strides that Dr Suswam has recorded now. He is been keenly watched by stakeholders for the 2015 Benue governorship project.