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Position: Governor of Benue State
Tenure: Four years
Duty Station: Makurdi, with responsibility for approximately 6 million people in 23 local government areas
Employer: The People of Benue State
Application Deadline: Election Day, February 6, 2027
https://voxnews.com.ng/ortom-saw-tomorrow-fg-ranching-policy-benue/
JOB DESCRIPTION
Benue State is looking for a Chief Executive Officer.
The successful candidate will inherit a state with enormous agricultural potential, a hardworking population, abundant human capital and a strategic location at the heart of Nigeria.
He will also inherit enormous problems.
He will be expected to confront insecurity and help thousands of displaced families return to their ancestral homes. He must revive agriculture beyond slogans, create opportunities for a youthful population, attract serious investment, expand infrastructure, manage public resources prudently and rebuild confidence in government.
The successful applicant must be able to sit across the table from the President of Nigeria and defend Benue’s interests without trembling.
He must be able to sit across from investors and convince them that Benue is worth their money.
He must be able to sit with security commanders and understand the gravity of decisions involving human lives.
He must be able to receive a multibillion-naira contract proposal, ask the right questions, understand the fine print and know when Benue is getting a good deal, or being taken for a ride.
He must understand the Constitution sufficiently to know where the powers of the Federal Government end and those of Benue State begin.
He must understand agriculture not merely as something politicians talk about during campaigns, but as a business capable of creating wealth, industries and jobs.
Above all, he must understand that the governorship is not a coronation.
It is a job.
So, before we begin another season of rallies, posters, jingles, endorsements and political slogans, perhaps Benue people should ask a question we don’t ask often enough:
What exactly are we hiring a governor to do?
That question changes everything.
Because once we define the job, we can begin to examine the applicants.
And one name deserves particularly serious examination: Chief Michael Kaase Aondoakaa, SAN.
PUT HIM IN THE ROOM
Forget the campaign posters for a moment.
Imagine that another security crisis has occurred somewhere in Benue.
The Governor is summoned to an emergency meeting involving senior security officials and representatives of the Federal Government. Intelligence reports are spread across the table. Constitutional questions arise. Federal and state responsibilities intersect. The lives and ancestral lands of Benue people are at stake.
Who do you want sitting in the Governor’s chair?
Put Michael Kaase Aondoakaa in that room.
Now imagine another room.
Representatives of a multinational agricultural company have arrived in Makurdi. They want thousands of hectares for a major investment. They come with lawyers, consultants and pages of agreements. The investment could create thousands of jobs if properly negotiated, or leave Benue with the short end of the stick if handled badly.
Who do you want negotiating for Benue?
Put Aondoakaa in that room.
Imagine yet another room.
A major federal policy is proposed which could have profound implications for land, agriculture or the security of Benue communities.
The Governor must engage Abuja.
This is not the time for slogans. It requires an understanding of law, federalism, negotiation, institutions and the workings of the Nigerian state.
Again, who do you want representing Benue?
Put Aondoakaa in the room.
That, ultimately, is what an election does.
We elect somebody to enter rooms most of us will never enter and make decisions that will affect all of us.
The question is whether the person we send into those rooms has the knowledge, confidence, experience and negotiating capacity to protect our interests.
BENUE CANNOT AFFORD ANOTHER LEARNING CURVE
There are positions in which learning on the job is perfectly acceptable.
The governorship of Benue State in 2027 should not be one of them.
The challenges are too urgent.
A displaced farmer cannot wait two years for a governor to understand the security architecture.
An unemployed graduate cannot suspend his life while a government learns economic policy.
A businessman cannot wait indefinitely for the administration to understand how investment works.
A state competing with 35 others for private capital, federal projects and development opportunities cannot afford leadership that spends half its tenure discovering how Nigeria works.
Benue needs a governor who arrives with institutional memory.
Aondoakaa has occupied one of the highest offices in Nigeria’s governance system as Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. He has interacted with the machinery of the Federal Government at its highest levels.
That experience matters.
Not because having occupied federal office automatically makes anyone a good governor.
It doesn’t.
It matters because experience should be interrogated according to its relevance to the job ahead.
The question is: What did you learn, whom did you encounter, what systems did you understand, and how can all of that now benefit Benue?
That should be the conversation.
HE HAS BEEN TO ABUJA. NOW THE QUESTION IS BENUE
There is another interesting dimension to the Aondoakaa candidacy.
Many politicians see state office as a ladder to national prominence.
Aondoakaa’s trajectory is different.
He has already occupied national office.
He has been Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice. He became a Senior Advocate of Nigeria. He has operated within the legal profession, public service, agriculture and private enterprise.
The governorship therefore need not be about building Michael Aondoakaa’s name.
The more important question is what that name, experience and network can now build for Benue.
There is a profound difference between a man asking:
“What can this office make me?”
and one challenged to answer:
“What can everything I have become enable me to make of this office?”
That is the standard against which Aondoakaa should be judged.
THE FARMER MUST MATTER
But impressive credentials will mean little to the farmer in Gwer, Ukum, Guma, Kwande, Apa, Agatu, Logo, Katsina-Ala or any other part of Benue if government cannot improve his life
This is where the conversation must leave Abuja and return home.
Benue’s greatest economic advantage remains the fertility of its land and the productivity of its people.
Yet, for too long, we have celebrated the title “Food Basket of the Nation” without building the industrial architecture worthy of that name.
A basket carries food.
An economy processes it.
The next phase of Benue’s development must therefore move beyond simply producing oranges, yams, cassava, soybeans, rice, sesame and other crops.
The real money is further down the value chain.
Processing.
Packaging
Storage.
Transportation.
Export.
Agro-industry.
That is how agriculture becomes jobs.
That is how farming becomes wealth.
That is how the young graduate begins to see agriculture not as punishment for failing to find a white-collar job, but as an industry in which technology, finance, logistics, processing and marketing can create prosperity.
A governor seeking to lead Benue from 2027 must understand this transition.
SECURITY IS ECONOMIC POLICY
None of this happens without security.
You cannot industrialize abandoned farmland.
You cannot attract investors to communities people are fleeing.
Banks will not finance farms that cannot be accessed.
Factories cannot depend on agricultural produce from areas where farmers are afraid to plant.
This is why security cannot be treated as one chapter of a manifesto while agriculture occupies another and investment another.
They are interconnected.
In Benue, security is agricultural policy. Security is investment policy. Security is employment policy. Security is development policy.
The next governor must understand that restoring security to Benue’s rural communities is not merely about reducing casualty figures.
It is about reopening farms.
Restoring livelihoods.
Rebuilding communities.
Returning children to schools.
Reconnecting local economies.
Giving displaced families their dignity back.
That is the scale of the job.
SO, WHAT ARE WE HIRING?
In 2027, Benue will not merely be electing another politician.
We will be recruiting a negotiator.
A crisis manager.
An investment salesman.
A defender of Benue’s constitutional interests.
A manager of billions of naira belonging to the public.
A chief security advocate.
A leader of more than five million people.
And the chief salesman of the Benue dream.
That is why the election should not be reduced to who has the largest posters, the loudest supporters or the catchiest slogan.
The office is too important.
The problems are too serious.
The opportunities are too enormous.
Every candidate seeking to govern Benue should therefore be subjected to the same interview.
What have you managed?
What have you negotiated?
What institutions do you understand?
What difficult decisions have you made?
What is your understanding of the Nigerian federation?
Can you defend Benue when powerful interests are sitting across the table
Can you attract capital without selling the inheritance of the people?
Can you turn agriculture into industry?
Can you put displaced people back on their land?
Can you create an economy in which our young people have reasons to stay in Benue rather than flee from it?
And perhaps the most important question:
Why should we entrust you with Benue for four years?
Michael Kaase Aondoakaa must answer those questions like everyone else.
But there is something unusual about his application.
His résumé is already before us.
Attorney-General of the Federation.
Minister of Justice.
Senior Advocate of Nigeria.
Lawyer.
Farmer.
Businessman.
A Benue son who has operated both within and outside the corridors of national power.
Now comes the interview.
And the interviewers are the people of Benue.
When we enter the polling booth in 2027, we should remember that we are not merely choosing between political parties.
We are hiring somebody to do perhaps the most important job in Benue State.
So look at the job description.
Look at the challenges.
Look at the applicants.
Look at their records.
Then ask yourself one final question:
If Benue State were your own company, your own farm, your own investment and your family’s future depended on the person sitting in the Chief Executive’s chair, who would you hire?
For an increasing number of Benue people, Michael Kaase Aondoakaa will be the answer.
Written by Terver Akase, PhD