CHARLES UDOH:  A MISFIT IN PUBLIC OFFICE

We have taken time to appraise the media activities of one Charles Udoh, a pathological liar and thuggish mis-informer doubling as the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Information and Strategy.

His appointment into the State Executive Council as Commissioner of Information and Strategy was, ab initio, a misplaced and grossly unmerited one given that he lacks the media and professional ingredients needed by the occupant of that office to excel.

We are yet to read about where he cut his information management teeth, articles he has published or journals he has ever edited. His appointment was made in a hurry because Udom Emmanuel was in a hurry  to ease out Udoh’s predecessor thought to be an Akpabio loyalist. That is a matter for another day.

Charles Udoh’s fumbling in the office is not unexpected. What Akwa Ibom people did not expected is his propensity to churning out lies, even when the facts are too glaring for any blind or deaf person to perceive.

Udoh’s tenure as the State’s mis information Commissioner, sorry, Information Commissioner, would remain the darkest period in the history of that once vibrant office, when the history of our lovely state would be told.

In a desperate bid to repair Akwa Ibom State Government’s bungling and battered image arising from unpreparedness for the war against COVID 19, Udoh has become grossly irresponsible and reckless.

Because of having low self esteem, he bullies his way out of any challenge or demand by throwing insults and disparaging comments against Akwa Ibom citizens who dare to demand government accountability and pro-activity. He sees every genuine demand from Akwa Ibom people for what goes on in government as politically motivated, hence, they must be insulted and called names for making such demands.

Last week, Charles Udoh targeted Akwa Ibom health professionals and workers who publicly protested the flagrant lies and level of unpreparedness by the Akwa Ibom State Government with regards to the Conoravirus scud.

Charles Udoh, just yesterday, on a privately owned Radio Station in Uyo, in a programme anchored  by a fellow misfit and blackmailer, Essien Ndueso, shamelessly said that the present Akwa Ibom State Government inherited a roofless and uncompleted Ibom Specialist Hospital that was without medical equipment.

Nothing can be farthest from the truth than that brazen lie which,  as every adult Akwa Ibomite already knows, reflects the character and method of the Udom Emmanuel-led government since May 29, 2015.

For telling lies against the Senator Godswill Akpabio-led government that built, fully equipped and commissioned the Ibom Specialist Hospital, we are calling his bluff while reiterating our long held demand for accountability by the Udom Emmanuel-led government.

Without equivocation, we state the already known and obvious truth that Senator Akpabio, while as the Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State between 2007 and 2015, built, fully equipped and commissioned the Ibom Specialist Hospital.

Once commissioned, several globally renowned medical consultants and other health professionals were contracted to work at the ISH even before Udom Emmanuel was sworn in as governor. He was the SSG at that time.

Therefore, it is preposterous for Charles Udoh, (whose only known contribution to the State is to purvey lies), to claim that the hospital was roofless and without equipment.

Noting that the former Health Minister, Professor Adewole, attested to the state-of-the-art facilities and equipment at ISH, specific questions that this shameless and ill prepared Information Commisioner should provide answers for are as follows: If there were no respirators, ventilators and other medical equipment at the ISH, were himself and colleagues treated and discharged in an unroofed and ill equipped hospital shortly after the Reigner’s Bible Church building collapsed? How were more than 50 victims of that church building collapse who were rushed to ISH operated upon and discharged if the facility was unroofed and not equipped?

We are quite sure that a misfit like Charles Udoh, as the lying mouth-piece of this jaundiced and derailed administration, realises that at the time of that tragedy which led to needless loss of Akwa Ibom sons and daughters, his boss was yet to commission a single project in the State, not to talk of a hospital good enough to handle such emergencies.

Suffice to say that if Senator Akpabio, as the Akwa Ibom State Governor, had been so lackadaisical in projects implementation, Charles Udoh and his ilk would have long been forgotten on the surface of this earth. He owes the Akpabio-led administration much gratitude instead of lying against it.

Charles Udoh, as shown in the attached picture, was a victim of that church building collapse and was treated at the Ibom Specialist Hospital that the Akpabio-led Akwa Ibom State Government built and equipped.

That he is lying and twisting facts today burrows a peep hole into his confused and miserable mindset that needs redemption.

The Udom Emmanuel government thumped its chest for having carried out several brain surgeries and complex medical operations soon after the Reigners’ Bible Church building collapse tragedy. Again, we boldly ask: with which equipment were the surgeries carried out?

It is not the first time that Charles Udoh will lie on behalf of the Udom Emmanuel-led government. Lying to Akwa Ibomites has become a cultural stamp and routine practice for officials in the Udom Emmanuel- led government.

We cannot expect any truth telling from a government that lied at groundbreaking ceremonies of several questionable projects it could never complete. We cannot respect a government that lied about the syringe and meter assembly factories, fertilizer blending plant, rice farms and mill in Ini Local Government Area, a worship center, tomato and cassava planting revolution that have since failed, 1,700 kilometers of constructed roads that are ripping apart, pencil and toothpick, factories that do not produce, a ranch with 2,000 Brazilian cows, a vehicle assembly plant and every other pie-in-the-sky project that government has announced or embarked upon.

Concerning the already spreading COVID 19 pandemic, it is obvious that government officials are taking Akwa Ibomites for granted, lying compulsively to cover up excessive corruption and poor level of preparedness.

Nineteen ventilators and several respirators were  part of equipment handed over to the Udom Emmanuel government by one Mrs Omaseye of JCN. Udom Emmanuel personally signed for and took three of the ventilators to the Government House Clinic. Yet, Charles Udoh, with the highest degree of shamelessness, publicly declared that there were no single ventilators at the ISH when Udom Emmanuel took over as governor. We challenge Governor Udom Emmanuel to refute this assertion.

It is unbelievable that the current Akwa Ibom State Government cannot track the remaining ventilators, but at every twist, lies about the number and whereabouts of those ventilators.

Information available to us reveal that the recently unveiled equipment at ISH are part of the yet to be installed ones abandoned at the hospital premises by the State Government since May 2015 . On the pretext of buying new equipment, government officials have corruptly succeeded in fleecing the Akwa Ibom State Treasury.

Let it be known to all Akwa Ibom people that the recent unveiling of medical equipment at the ISH by Udom Emmanuel are all pure and planned deceits. It is an attempt by the discredited government to snatch credit from the previous government while misappropriating public funds.

Akwa Ibom State Government will be held accountable, not only for the ventilators, but for all equipment it signed for at the outset of Udom Emmanuel’s government in 2015.

Now that the National Centre For Disease Control (NCDC), has recorded five COVID 19 positive carriers in Akwa Ibom State, we expect Charles Udoh to be leashed and stopped from misinforming Akwa Ibom State..

It will be better for Government to focus on fighting the deepening and widening spread of the pandemic in the State than be obsessed with heaping blames for its incompetence and failure on Senator Akpabio.

Signed

Comrade Mfon Patrick

Publicity Secretary.