By Ukeme Gabriel
I wish to express my sincere gratitude for your dogged determination to tackle this coronavirus pandemic and your unbending resolve in this time of global crisis. Thank you so much.
Your Excellency, it was said that when suppression becomes the law, resistance becomes inevitable. You once promised us, the people under your care, that there won’t be any coronavirus case in Akwa Ibom. We believed you, isn’t your name “Emmanuel” which means “God is with us”?
When the Nigerian Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) declared five Covid19 cases, you vowed to subsequently challenge the result in court, you also debunked it on air as being (an) hoax. Sir, pray, what happens to the two hundred man live band organized to celebrate the discharge of the refuted coronavirus patients? Your Excellency, YOU LIED and the lives of Akwa Ibom people are under your care.
Sir, I must really commend you for the palliatives and relief packages you distributed to each local government of the state as promised. I must also thank you for the monitoring team set up to monitor their distribution. I’m glad to announce to the world that my mother has received one cup of rice and beans each which we will eat for the remaining days of the lockdown and for the insult my dad told me Mom to measure additional cups to the person who brought it. Your Excellency, since you’re a Christian, as many believed, we are hopeful that just as Christ fed the multitude with five loaves and two fish, Akwa Ibomites shall eat the one cup of rice and beans for seven days. This is our faith.
Your Excellency, the lockdown was supposed to prevent all forms of movements in the State, sir, I’ll like to bring to your notice that there’s no lockdown, instead we have hikes in the prices of transport fare and extortion by the police. Sir, this lockdown has also ampified the level of brutality inherent in the security forces under your care.
Sir, I hate to say this but I must have to agree with Jonathan Swift that “the law is like a cobweb, only small insects are trapped”. Yesterday, people arrived our community transported down by members of the Police force in mufti, in a police van. Some policemen have turned commuters transporting people at a subsidized rate, indeed, the police are our friends!
Your Excellency, you once said that the past government spent billions building “monuments and white elephant projects”, some of those “monuments” include the Ibom Specialist Hospital, Ibom International Airport, Ibom International Stadium, etc. Sir, may I ask, is this the same monument, the Ibom Specialist Hospital that the three Covid19 patients in Akwa Ibom were discharged and welcomed by a team of brass band? Is it also the Ibom International Airport another monument that houses the celebrated Ibom Air? Sir, I’m sorry to bring this to you, but I heard a drunk say yesterday that the Akpabio International Stadium one of the “monuments” has generated more income for the states than all the industries you’ve built, combined. If the drunk is right, then again, YOU LIED.
Sir, if indeed we’re operating under democracy and one of the tenets of democracy is constructive criticism then this should reach out to you for consideration. Your Excellency, the lives of Akwa Ibom people are in your hands, lead us aright. Your Excellency, the “street” is electrified, it will soon start to “shock”, give us food, give us light, give us water then we will stay at home. Once the people can no longer contain the hunger, we shall betray your trust, and there shall be a mass exodus of people in the street.
Meanwhile we expect more cups of rice from our Rice Processing Mills. Of course, this should be a thing of pride to tell my Igbo and Hausa neighbours that the bags of rice sent as palliative are from our state’s processing mill. Even you, your Excellency, would be proud of it
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