NGScorecard

Promised sustained support for the large population of Benue residents displaced by insurgent and herder violence.

The state emergency management agency (BENSEMA) has run 14-15 IDP camps with monthly relief distributions supported by the government, UNHCR, and NEMA, and the administration launched a formal IDP Policy aimed at shifting from relief to durable resettlement, with 80 families returning to ancestral homes by November 2025 — but the state's IDP population remains large and the June 2025 Yelwata massacre itself displaced roughly 3,000 more people, showing the underlying displacement crisis outpacing resettlement efforts.

Promised, on assuming office, to prioritise civil service reform and ensure workers were paid regularly, addressing a legacy of salary delays.

The administration has remained largely faithful to prompt monthly salary payments since Alia's 29 May 2023 inauguration, a consistent point of praise even from critics of the wider administration.

Promised to clear accumulated arrears of pensions and gratuities owed to retired civil servants within the administration's first 100 days in office.

The 100-day pledge was not met, and multiple retirees had to seek relief through the National Industrial Court, which repeatedly ruled the state's withholding of pensions unlawful and ordered payment of arrears. Alia issued a fresh pledge in late 2025 to clear all outstanding pensions and gratuities owed between 2023 and 2025 by the end of January 2026.

Promised to build an agriculture-led economy and revive the multi-billion-naira Taraku Mills as a flagship industrial project.

Reviving Taraku Mills has remained a stated administration priority through 2025-2026, alongside broader agricultural development goals, but comprehensive independently verified evidence of the mill's actual resumption of production was not identified for this entry.

Promised an infrastructure renewal programme covering both Makurdi's urban core and rural electrification across local government areas.

The administration launched simultaneous construction of 16 township roads in Makurdi under its Strategic Development Plan, extended rural electrification to several local government areas, and by June 2026 had commissioned 10 major projects including an ICT Centre and a NITDA facility.

Promised targeted youth empowerment programmes to cut unemployment, particularly through agricultural subsidies.

The administration launched the Benue State Youth Empowerment Scheme in 2024, providing agricultural subsidies aimed at reducing unemployment; comprehensive independently verified job-creation or beneficiary-outcome data was not identified for this entry.

Implicit obligation, given the debt and financial disputes surrounding the handover from the Ortom administration, to run a more transparent and accountable government.

The administration has faced repeated fund-mismanagement allegations, including a civil society petition alleging N66 billion was mismanaged within four months of taking office, a N345.3 billion fraud allegation from a 2023 gubernatorial rival, and a 2026 EFCC investigation into an alleged N4.6 billion diversion of local government funds involving the Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs' own principal officers.

Implicit obligation to enforce Benue's existing Open Grazing Prohibition and Ranches Establishment Law of 2017, widely seen as central to preventing renewed farmer-herder violence.

Critics and even the Benue State House of Assembly itself have said the anti-open grazing law exists largely on paper under the administration, urging Alia to ensure full implementation following renewed herdsmen attacks; the administration's response has centred on forming a new 5,000-then-10,000-strong Civil Protection Guard rather than demonstrating consistent direct enforcement of the grazing ban itself.

Promised fiscal responsibility and a reduction of the heavy debt burden he said Benue inherited from the Ortom administration.

The debt figure itself became a point of public dispute between Alia and Ortom, and rather than improving, the state's fiscal pressure appears to have intensified: Benue's quarterly debt-service cost rose from ₦1.99 billion in Q4 2024 to ₦21.40 billion in Q1 2025, placing it among states whose debt-service costs exceeded their internally generated revenue.