Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first African-owned US-based professional newspaper published on the Internet.
Elsie-Bernadette Onubogu, contributing analyst to USAfrica and USAfricaonline.com, is an international lawyer and former Senior Policy Advisor with the United Nations and the Commonwealth.
“Thou shall not bear false witness against thy neighbor” is the 9th commandment of the Lord.
How do you reconcile this commandment with Nigeria’s Benue State Gov. Hyacinth Alia’s claim of being unaware of Peter Obi’s September 8, 2026 visit to the same Benue State he serves as governor?
This claim has since been contradicted by the Police in Benue State, and others. His behavior compromises ecclesial discipline and directly undermines the credibility of the entire ministry.
Governor Alia denied the genocide and displacements happening to families in his Benue State.
His history of dishonesty, lack of empathy, and neglect of corporal works of mercy — especially where human lives are concerned —warrants an immediate ecclesiastical investigation to protect the Catholic Church from additional shame.
Alia’s entry into partisan politics has produced a canonical controversy, among others.
In 2022, the Catholic Diocese of Gboko in Benue State, led by Bishop W. Avenya suspended Governor Alia from pastoral duties – after he entered the Benue governorship race, citing the Church’s restrictions on clerics’ involvement in partisan politics.
They are under the ecclesiastical authority of the Vatican. It is not a private enterprise! It is not a political party.
There is a solemn phrase in Catholic theology:
Tu es sacerdos in aeternum, secundum ordinem Melchisedech.
“You are a priest forever, according to the order of Melchizedek.”
Despite this assurance, the priesthood is not a costume that is put on at Mass and removed when the priest walks into the Government House.
Alia is currently suspended from active ministry, as his controversial conduct risks bringing further disrepute to the Catholic Church.
The current situation raises fundamental questions:
– How can a priest govern effectively when the public can no longer trust his administration to tell the truth?
– How can anyone — especially a priest — lead after losing the fundamental trust of the people?
– How can a priest, ordained to perform works of mercy, actively reject and block corporal works that bring comfort to his grieving people?
– How can a Priest bear false witness against his neighbor or his people?
While lying itself is not a matter of dogma, truthfulness is a binding moral obligation deeply rooted in Divine Revelation and Scripture.
When an ordained Catholic priest repeatedly violates this moral duty in public office, especially when human lives and dignity are at stake, it creates a grave scandal.
It is deeply painful to watch a man who once preached the Gospel from the altar become comfortable with unprovable explanations and utterances flatly contradicted by his own State apparatus.
This issue is beyond 2027 politics in Nigeria.
It is also about the pervasive culture of impunity and insecurity, ravaging Benue and other areas in Nigeria.
It is not a judgment!
It is simply laying bare haunting facts threatening the faith of God’s children.
So, my call for a probe is about probing a gathering scandal surrounding the moral obligations of a ‘supposed’ Catholic priest.
The Catechism of the Church has a warning that the seriousness of a lie increases according to the nature of the truth distorted, the circumstances, the intention and the harm suffered by its victims.
The blocked visit added suffering to the grieving families who deserved comfort
Yes, for this lie, I thought about excommunication, but Governor Alia is not a heretic. The Code of Canon Law does not make every lie an excommunicable offense
Governor Alia’s clear dishonesty does not, by itself, make him a heretic or an apostate.
The more difficult and important question is whether a Catholic priest who repeatedly acts contrary to the Church’s teaching on truthfulness, justice, charity and the dignity of the human person can continue to exercise public authority without the Church examining whether his conduct has become a source of grave scandal.
Significantly, at his September 9th, 2026 General Audience in Saint Peter’s square, Pope Leo XIV noted: “every person is created in God’s image through Christ… so, we received a unique and indelible dignity.
Thus, Christians must promote and defend the inherent dignity of every human person while confronting distortions that undermine respect…”
On September 8, 2026, Nigeria’s presidential candidate Peter Obi travelled to Benue State intending to visit Yelewata, a community devastated by a recent massacre, to commiserate with families of over 200 victims and offer support.
Organized youths blocked his convoy along the Makurdi-Gboko road. Mr. Obi subsequently abandoned the journey rather than force his way through and provoke violence.
Governor Alia denied responsibility, arguing he was not aware of the visit.
But here is where the matter becomes considerably more troubling.
The Benue State Police Commissioner, Cletus Nwadiogbu, said the police had been officially informed of Obi’s planned movement and that security personnel had actually been deployed for the journey to Yelewata.
In fact, the Police command produced a request from the National Democratic Congress (NDC), signed and acknowledged by the Benue police.
At the time of writing this article, local news announced forty-six suspects had been arrested in connection to the blockade.
The afterthought and subsequent action is fueled by the wide condemnation including from Amnesty International.
Still, it raises the question on Governor Alia’s inability to control the security of the state as its Chief Security Officer (CSO).
So, the central question is no longer merely political.
It also goes to his ability and capacity to govern.
Furthermore, it exposes the duplicity of an ‘erstwhile’ “efficient” police force that tear-gassed Benue people protesting insecurity.
The same police force could not disperse a group of hoodlums who were obstructing a citizen’s lawful movement. Perhaps, they had instructions not to.
The Nigerian Constitution (1999) is clear about freedom of movement.
Even without the official notification, Mr. Peter Obi, under Section 41, is guaranteed the right to move freely throughout Nigeria, subject to narrowly defined lawful restrictions.
A Governor does not confer the freedom of movement. But the governor as the Chief Security Officer (CSO) has the obligation to protect and maintain security in his State.
If private citizens (organized thugs) block a road unlawfully, the responsibility of government is not to shrug, but to restore the rule of law. In this instance, Governor Alia – turned his eyes and ears away.
He failed in his constitutional duty.
He failed in his spiritual duties as a Catholic priest.
This is especially true where the person being obstructed is a former governor, a presidential candidate and a Nigerian citizen travelling to mourn people who were killed in one of the country’s most horrifying episodes of mass violence.
There is no politically or religiously convenient escape from the questions this scandal raises.
The Catholic question is even more uncomfortable
Though suspended, he remains an ordained priest. This – ought to make a difference – especially if he is interested in being reinstated with exercise of spiritual works.
The Catholic Church reaffirms that truth is not a political preference, and that lying violates truth, which could exert violence to another person’s ability to know, judge and decide.
Furthermore, it cautions:
lying damages society because it undermines trust and tears at the fabric of human relationships. Hence, the most important political currency for a leader is public trust.
A priest’s moral currency is the truth. When the two offices collide in the same person, the standard undoubtedly becomes higher.
Political office cannot erase the moral identity of the priest. Indeed, it makes the public conduct of that priest more consequential.
When a Catholic priest occupies public office, his actions inevitably become part of the public witness.
This is why this is an important issue for the Church to investigate further.
Governor Alia’s conduct is causing many to conclude (erroneously) that Catholic teaching on truth, justice, charity and human dignity can be preached from the pulpit and ignored in public life, the damage goes beyond the individual.
The Catholic Church speaks of spiritual and corporal works of mercy: feeding the hungry, giving drink to the thirsty, sheltering the homeless, visiting the sick and imprisoned, burying the dead, and comforting and instructing those in need.
To visit communities devastated by violence is not an affront to government.
Indeed, for a Christian, compassion for the afflicted should be almost instinctive.
That is why the reported obstruction of a visit to families grieving over the Yelwata massacre is so morally disturbing.
The issue is not whether Peter Obi is a politician or in opposition. The question is: should grieving Nigerians be permitted to receive other Nigerians who wish to commiserate with them?
The Vatican should not be dragged into Nigerian politics. But when one who sits at the top- of an ongoing scandal is wearing a part of Rome, then, it raises uncomfortable questions.
The Catholic Church should no longer remain silent when this person’s action is bringing disrepute to the Church.
Yes, the Church had acted in the past. I urge the Church to investigate further whether:
– There is persistent and ongoing conduct inconsistent with the moral obligations of the priesthood?
– Is truth deliberately being distorted?
– Is this conduct damaging the credibility of the Church?
– Is the conduct impacting on the faith, and relations with the lay faithful?
These are ecclesiastical questions that deserve probing.
The Church cannot preach truth on Sunday and do the opposite on other days.
The Catholic Church cannot tell the faithful that truthfulness is a grave moral obligation and then seem indifferent when one of its priests is accused of repeatedly departing from that obligation in the full glare of public life.
What I know for sure is, Yelewata people are injured, the victims deserve something more than political spin.
I believe it is time for the Vatican to speak in the definitive language every Catholic understands:
“Roma locuta, causa finita est” (Rome has spoken, the case is closed).
As a lay Catholic, I invoke the Vatican to act. It is time to investigate whether its own is bearing false witness!
