Alia had won the governorship primary of the APC after he amassed 12 of the 23 local government areas of the state with a total of 464,391 votes.
He beat his rivals, Mathias Byuan, who won in one local government and a former Minister of State for Niger Delta, Sam Ode, who won in five LGAs.
The priest had clinched the ticket days after he was suspended from celebrating public Eucharistic mass by the Catholic Bishop of Gboko Diocese, William Avenya, over his active participation in partisan politics.
His victory was, however, enshrouded in some form of controversy after other aspirants and supporters of the APC rose against him.
On Tuesday, the State Coordinator of the APC Solidarity Group, Guana Joseph, disclosed in a statement in Abuja that documents emanating from the Independent National Electoral Commission had revealed that the Vandiekya Local Government chapter of the party where the suspended Catholic priest hails from has no record of his membership.
The group also accused Senator George Akume of being ‘blinded by desperation’ to the extent of imposing a non-party member on the APC as her governorship candidate.
The statement read, “We have with us the certified true copies of INEC’s response to an application by a law firm, Broad Spectrum & Partners, requesting for certified true copies of the acknowledgement of receipt of hard and soft copies of the registers of members of the All Progressives Congress, New Nigeria Peoples Party, Peoples Democratic Party and Social Democratic Party from Benue State as submitted to the INEC.
“In its reply to the application signed by Barr. Ernest Olenyi, INEC revealed that out of the 23 local government areas of Benue State, the APC submitted the list of members in 21 local government areas.
“The two local government areas without its list of members are Vandiekya and Katsina-Ala local governments.
“The implication is that the ruling All Progressives Congress has no validly nominated governorship candidate by the party as the local government area where Rev. Father Hyacinth Alia is from was not submitted in compliance with Section 77(2) & (3) of the Electoral Act 2022 (as amended).”
The Benue State APC had zoned the governorship seat to Jechira, which includes Konshisha and Vandiekya Local government areas of the state.
Joseph noted that with Vandiekya register not submitted to INEC and the deadline already elapsed, it shows that the party may not have candidates from both Katsina Ala and Vandiekya Local Areas of Benue.
He stated, “Alia falls short of the three months membership waiver, hence stand disqualified on the ground that there is no member of the party from Vandiekya Local government at all. The leadership of the party at the state level is aware of this development but the leader is mute about it.
“This, therefore, brings to mind, the question of the leadership has truly ceded the Governorship seat to the PDP. The party has Konshisha local government to choose from. We have two competent aspirants from Konshisha, we must look at that direction if the APC must participate in the 2023 Governorship elections in Benue.”
The group also called of the Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led leadership of the APC to intervene before it is too late.
“The National Chairman of our party H.E Senator Abdullahi Adamu should quickly resolve this issue before it is too late. We are sure that the state chapter is not ready to do the needful base on some certain interest, it is unfortunate that APC in Benue is sinking before our very eyes,” he said.
