Re: Senator Godswill Akpabio’s Ploy To Annihilate The Ibibios Is not Hidden- Ibom Renewal Initiative
By Clement Ikpatt
Not withstanding the authors’ illogical and poorly written piece laced with grammatical errors, we have seen this pattern before and can rightly conclude that it is an Udom Emmanuel’s sponsored script to attack and denigrate Senator Akpabio, the Hon. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs.
Udom Emmanuel, driven by his rabid hatred for his former benefactor, will latch on any thing, trivial or not, divisive and ethnic, to perpetrate pettiness and divert attention from his lack lustre performance as governor of Akwa Ibom State.
It is straight from Udom Emmanuel’s playbook that he will attempt to turn a normal, friendly and work related courtesy call by Senator Kabiru Gaya and Obong Nsima Ekere into a social media circus for ethnocentric bigotry and hate-mongering.
As the Hon. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, overseeing the Niger Delta Development Commission, Senator Akpabio is at liberty to host and seek advice or suggestions from the former Managing Director of NDDC, Obong Ekere, as well as from Senator Gaya.
To help clear the fog in Udom Emmanuel’s attention deficit mind, the September 16, 2019 courtesy call by Obong Ekere, was neither his first nor second visit to Akpabio. He had been there to congratulate and consult with the Hon. Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, who doubles as the leader of the Akwa Ibom State chapter of the All Progressives Party (APC).
Ekere regularly visits and freely associates with his former boss, in order to offer helpful advice and suggestions that can make Akpabio succeed.
The former deputy governor is neither petty-minded nor ethnicity-driven as are Udom Emmanuel and some of his Ibibio sycophants as well as all-government’s political jobbers who play the ethnic card to curry political and pecuniary advantages.
He does not window-dress issues and needs no applause from ethnocentric bigots and leeches, who have nothing good to offer but feed from causing trouble in the polity.
It is preposterous for any one to think, let alone accuse Akpabio of indicting Ekere, former MD of NDDC, of financial impropriety.
Emmanuel and his mischievous lieutenants would serve themselves better by being a little bit more reflective and honest. Every reasonable Nigerian knows that growth and development indices in the Niger Delta region are not commensurate with trillions of Naira sunk into the NDDC since its creation.
This truthful and generic sentiment was expressed by the Vice President of Nigeria, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo SAN and was similarly echoed by Akpabio and the Hon. Minister of State for Niger Delta Affairs, Festus Keyamo, SAN.
As Managing Director (MD) of the NDDC, Obong Ekere was known to have engaged positive and well calibrated reforms within the Commission. He succeeded in cutting out pork projects, maintained peace, improved management structures, as well as spread development projects across the length and breadth of the Niger Delta region, including Akwa Ibom State.
To Obong Ekere’s credit, his prudent management skills and other excellent works spoke well of his tenure and excluded him from the list of those who performed below expectation.
Ekere needs no patronizing statement from anyone, let alone a ragtag group fronting for Udom Emmanuel and his ethnocentric bigots.
Akpabio’s brand of politics is, first of all, uncommonly transforming. Most Nigerians, except Emmanuel and his desperate band of sycophants, acknowledge the fact that Akpabio generally transformed Akwa Ibom State.
They also acknowledge that Ibibios were, and continue to be, the greatest beneficiaries of his transformation agenda.
It is time to speak bluntly! Let us call a spade for what it is and shame the ethnic bigots happily sponsored and led by Emmanuel to plant divisive mines in the polity.
Akwa Ibom governors from the Ibibio stock are notoriously poor performing leaders who disdainfully relate to and do very little for the Ibibios. After their respective tours of service, they shamefully exit into obscurity and petty politics.
The Ibibios know and say these among themselves in hush tones, wishing that the self loathing and poor performing leadership jinx is soon broken.
While Akpabio does not play the ethnic card, truth is that no military administrator or democratically elected governor of Akwa Ibom State, who is of the Ibibio stock, can match his (Akpabio’s) record of Ibibiocentric development and benchmark for transforming leadership.
While serving as Governor, Akpabio became a highly celebrated and decorated Ibibio chief who developed the capital city, Uyo – an Ibibio town that is currently far better than what he inherited from Obong Victor Attah and far better than any other township in the State.
Today, Greater Uyo boasts of a FIFA-rated International Stadium, an E-Library, a pipe jacking flood water drainage system, the Ibom Specialist hospital and other improved hospitals, many rehabilitated and renovated schools, some internal roads, etc.
All major internal roads across the length and breadth of Ibibio land were either constructed or rehabilitated when Akpabio was governor. Almost all Ibibio politically exposed persons today, were made and groomed in one way or another by Akpabio. No right thinking Ibibio person, unless for pecuniary and devilish reasons, can accuse Akpabio of ever nursing any plan to annihilate the Ibibios.
Yet, Emmanuel and his Ibibio outlaws, have the nerve to betray and insult the man who made them.
Otuekong Idongesit Nkanga, the ethnic warmonger known to be irredeemably selfish and thoroughly hated by his people in Nsit Ibom Local Government Area, was sidelined for opposing his fellow Ibibio governor, Obong Victor Attah. He was once the Military Administrator of Akwa Ibom State. Years after serving as the Military Administrator, he was literally rescued from obscurity and poverty, dusted refurbished and restored by the same Akpabio he now insults and vilifies with ignominy. He has suddenly forgotten how he wept profusely in the public, when this same Akpabio, presented him with a brand new jeep.
Obong Akpan Isemin and Obong Victor Attah did very little for the Ibibios, especially for their town folks in Etinan and Ibesikpo Asutan local government areas, respectively.
While the former was constrained by lack of vision and short length of service, the later was more of a policies draughtsman than a charismatic and can-do leader who knew how to implement his policies. Obong Victor Attah was a leadership failure who deliberately kept his kinfolks at arms length for no other reason than self loathe.
Udom Emmanuel, the inveterate and shamefully clueless governor from the Ibibio stock, is the bottom worst performing Akwa Ibom State leader in history. Impervious to Akpabio’s mentoring, Emmanuel controls the largest resource pool that Akwa Ibom State has ever been blessed with. There is nothing spectacular and iconic that he is doing for his kinsfolk, let alone for the State. He remains an Ibibio person only for political expediency, Udom Emmanuel is the shame of the Ibibio tribe; he is willing to play the ethnic card at the slightest opportunity because he has no positive agenda to present for the growth and development of Akwa Ibom State.
Obong Nsima Ekere is a genuinely detribalized Akwa Ibom son, who has always been different from the ethnocentric bigots. No matter those few challenges Ekere had with Akpabio, both progressive sons of Akwa Ibom State and the Niger Delta region always find a way to easily mend fences and work together for the overall interest of their beloved state and region.
That Udom Emmanuel and his fellow bigots are desperate to put a wedge between Akpabio and Ekere can be understood: Agents of darkness will always seek to bruise the heels of good men. But, they can never succeed! How else can a routine and friendly courtesy call on Akpabio be so twisted and misconstrued by debased minds to mean “… a mere political gambit to demonize Obong Ekere and other Ibibio men and make them to realize that he (Sen. Godswill Akpabio) has the power today and will decide what to do with it”?
It does not need Senator Kabiru Gaya to broker any phantom or perceived deal between Akpabio and Ekere. Both are practicing Christians who understand the principle of reciprocal forgiveness. Both are loyal to each other, as brothers and colleagues in the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Both have raised and mentored several Ibibio sons unto political and professional heights. Unlike Emmanuel, Nkanga, a two year tenure Senator Anietie Okon and many other irresponsible Ibibio elders, both Akpabio Ekere have made uncountable Ibibio rich men, built houses and started businesses for many Ibibio folks. Groomed many Ibibio sons to marry and provided meal tickets for Ibibio families.
Senator Akpabio and Obong Ekere did not need Senator Gaya to broker the empowerment of Ibibio sons and daughters. How will they now need anybody else for the imaginary slaughter of the same Ibibios they have committed their political lives to empowering?
Among the Ibibios, a common enemy is that self loathing and destructive mindset entrenched in the likes of Emmanuel and his fellow hatemongers.
To the bad Ibibio elements, who easily betray each other and find themselves in positions of leadership, their course of Ibibio nation, which is ethnocentric bigotry, trumps any policy plan for sustainable development in Akwa Ibom State.
The slow bellies have never seen Ekere as their own and, therefore, cannot disown or sell off whom they never had or cherished.
Warming up to Obong Nsima can only be their stunt to get really close, milk him dry and eventually betray him as they did to Akpabio.
Calling on “all Ibibio sons and daughters to unite and work as a common entity in a bid to stopping the advancement of Akpabio ignoble course(s) in Ibibio land”, is idiotic and desperate of Emmanuel and his fellow ethnocentric bigots. Trying to make a scapegoat of Akpabio in order to cover up their failures in leadership and disdain for the Ibibio nation is not only scandalous, but calls for their excommunication.
It serves well to repeat that Akpabio is highly rated and most beneficial to the Ibibio nation than the pack of prodigal sons, hypocrites and ethnocentric bigots led by Udom Emmanuel.
It is the constitutional right of any qualifying Nigerian to belong to a political party of his or her choice. Membership in a political party does not impede citizenship rights of our Ibibio nationality. Only Udom Emmanuel and his scoundrels will, in the name of Ibibio patriots or Ibom Renewal Forum, force the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on freeborn Ibibio sons and daughters. Ibibio progressives, who may be members of the All Progressives Congress (APC), are first loyal to God and then unapologetic followers of Akpabio Ekere.
All reasonable Ibibio elders and persons should join the progressives and stay away from Udom Emmanuel and any divisive person who does not mean well for Akwa Ibom State.
Ikpatt writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.
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