2023 GUBER ELECTION AND THE GIBBERISH PROWLING BY AKWA IBOM COUNCIL OF ELDERS
2023 GUBER ELECTION AND THE GIBBERISH PROWLING BY AKWA IBOM COUNCIL OF ELDERS
On Monday, December 26, 2022, a self-styled pan-Akwa Ibom organisation, Akwa Ibom Council of Elders, issued a press statement about its plans to meet with gubernatorial candidates for the forthcoming general election across all political parties in Akwa Ibom State at the Ibom e-library on Wednesday, January 4, 2023.
The council, in the said statement signed by its protem secretary, Chief Moses Essien and published on social media, listed its composition to include all former governors and their deputies, all former ministers, all former senators, all former ambassadors, all former secretaries to government, all former vice chancellors, all retired state chief judges and all retired judges of the state, federal, appellate and supreme courts. Others also listed as members are former commissioners who left office in the last 20 years, all retired military officers not below the rank of colonel in the Army and their equivalent in the Navy and Air Force and all retired Police Officers not below the rank of Commissioners and their equivalent in the DSS, Customs, Immigration and Civil Defence.
Curiously, what is the agenda of the council of elders? What are their mission and the timing of its emergence on the political turf of Akwa Ibom State? Without much ado, discerning Akwa Ibomites know how this group was concocted and where it is coming from. The planned converge is another political gimmick or simply put, a gibberish prowling by the Udom Emmanuel – led administration to use the so-called “Akwa Ibom Council of Elders” to continue their fruitless endorsements of Pastor Umo Eno. It is a well known fact that the ‘group’ chaired by former Governor, Obong (Arc) Victor Attah, was birthed few months ago and is funded by the Udom Emmanuel–led administration.
We recall that it was Obong (Arc) Victor Attah, who formally presented Umo Eno as the “preferred gubernatorial choice” in the succession game plan of Udom Emmanuel at Government House on Sunday, January 30, 2022. We can also recall that on Monday, January 31, 2022 – few hours after Umo Eno’s “adoption, endorsement and unveiling as the preferred successor” to Governor Udom Emmanuel by the so-called Akwa Ibom stakeholders, he (Umo Eno) was taken to formally pay homage to Obong (Arc) Victor Attah at his Shelter Afrique residence in Uyo. So how can Attah today pretend to be an unbiased superintendent over a group (with the same composition of people who adopted Umo Eno), wanting to meet with all the gubernatorial candidates of all political parties and thereafter pass a verdict on who is their preferred choice? How can one be a prosecutor and a judge at the same time, in the same case? This is too obvious a game to be easily deciphered as a ruse. We say so with facts. Apart from the earlier mentioned endorsement, Obong (Arc) Victor Attah has at several fora eulogized Umo Eno. In an interview on June 28, 2022 published on social media, Obong Attah said: “I see Umo Eno coming from the private sector, bringing with him the same zeal, innovation and ideas that I brought to governance.
“I see in Umo Eno the willingness to embrace the past and build on the achievements of the present Governor. Umo is someone who would love to consult. He has brought his blueprint and he asked me to make inputs and I am impressed with his humility.” He went further, “Umo Eno has the humility to listen and the capacity to deliver. Among those that came out to contest, Umo Eno is the only aspirant who did not belong to any known group and has Akwa Ibom as his own group. As the leader of the Ibibios and by extension Akwa Ibom State, I had the responsibility of presenting Pastor Umo Eno as the best to take over from Governor Udom Emmanuel. It was not the decision of one person, but collectively a decision of stakeholders.”
So, who is fooling who? As Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Obong Victor Attah was using Pastor Umo Eno as a front to execute contracts in ExxonMobil. By then, Senator (Mrs.) Akon Eyakenyi, the gubernatorial running mate to Umo Eno was Commissioner for Culture and Tourism. Obong Attah and his ilk in the council of elders are already prejudiced. It is clear therefore to know that no matter how the council may want to veil its intentions about the proposed meeting with contestants, it is another gambit for the endorsement of Pastor Umo Eno. So Obong Victor Attah and his group lack the integrity and sincerity of purpose to pursue a selfless mission of gathering all the gubernatorial candidates and arriving at free and fair deliberations with them on the 2023 election. As said in Latin, “missio mala intentione” (a mission with bad intention). Besides, whatever opinion Obong Victor Attah or members of his council of elders have about Umo Eno remain strictly personal to them. We are not running an aristocratic system of government.
Endorsement and imposition is not what Akwa Ibom people want come 2023. Obong Victor Attah and his co-travellers, including their chief sponsor – Udom Emmanuel, have seen the hand writing on the wall that the Umo Eno’s project has suffered total rejection since the announcement on January 30, 2022. So why beat a dead horse? Why canvassing for and projecting what is not wanted by the people? As often said in Latin, “Vox populi, Vox dei” (the voice of the people is the voice of God). Election rests squarely with the people through votes.
To wit, for 2023 election, it will be one man, one vote. Therefore, the power to decide who emerges as the governor is not domiciled with any group no matter their composition. Who wins will be decided through majority votes and not any council of elders. In Latin, it is said; “populus quinam velint ad suffragium” (let the people decide who they want at the poll).
Consequently, we advise members of the “Elders Council” to rather get their PVCs and be ready to vote for who they want at the polls during the forthcoming elections rather than masquerading as a pan-Akwa Ibom organisation to hoodwink gullible members of the public.
There will be no amount of subterfuge that can be made to beguile the people or force them to accept what they do not want. Enough is enough. Udom Emmanuel’s two-term tenures, with few months to roundup eight (8) years, have been full of terrible agonies for Akwa Ibomites and from all indications; they are not ready to go through another round of hallucination through the contraption called imposition. Obong Victor Attah and his group of elders should take cognizance of the shame the certificate scandal involving Umo Eno (in the suit filed by Mr. Akan Okon) has brought on the image of Akwa Ibom State. Why should a mere presentation of WAEC certificate(s) involve the hiring of seven (7) Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SANs) and other numbers of lawyers? If the Elders have eaten the King's meat and lost their consciences, they should not drag Akwa Ibomites into their foibles.
If truly there is such Council of Elders in Akwa Ibom; the least we should expect of them is seeking to indulge in a meeting with a predetermined disposition to cajole the people to accept Umo Eno as a consensus candidate. Obong Victor Attah should desist from constantly downgrading his revered position in the State and Nation. One could have thought that after his failed attempt to install his son in-law, Dr. Udoma Bob Ekarika as his preferred successor in 2007, that that was enough lesson for him to avoid going into another controversial political sojourn. But it wasn’t. In the 2011 gubernatorial election, Obong Attah openly endorsed and gave every backing to Senator John James Akpan Udoedehe against the then incumbent Governor, Godswill Akpabio. But his showmanship ended as mission impossible.
On October 27, 2015, few months after the electoral defeat of Obong Umana Okon Umana, who he also openly endorsed against Udom Emmanuel; Obong Victor Attah announced his voluntary withdrawal from active politics. That decision was reinforced by his "enthronement" as the political leader of the Ibibios – a position that requires non-partisanship in the political affairs of his people. But he has constantly refused to be neutral. For pundits, Obong Attah’s volte face remains very amusing. As an Elder statesman, he should therefore live above board in the politics of Ibibios and Akwa Ibom State as a whole.
There are many issues of interest that are begging for attention at the regional and national levels that should engage his attention and members of his group. The elders should be more interested to speak truth to power concerning the dehumanizing governance of the Udom Emmanuel –led administration. The management of our commonwealth should interest Obong Victor Attah and his associates. As we can recall, Obong Victor Attah is one of those who took up the agitation for resource control and the rights of the Niger Delta people during his reign as Governor of Akwa Ibom State. That is why people of good conscience expect him to be at the lead to ask Governor Udom Emmanuel where our money is – to wit, the windfall of 13 % derivation refunds and other accruals to Akwa Ibom State from the federal Government and others, from 1999 to 2022 amounting to over N 2.2 trillion!
Akwa Ibom people want Obong Victor Attah to recall that with the little monthly revenue from Federation Account Allocation Committee (FAAC), he used to receive during his tenure as Governor, that he was able to ensure that the lives of the people were positively touched in all ramifications. He should therefore boldly ask Governor Udom Emmanuel why poverty has so emasculated the people under his watch despite the billions of naira coming into the covers of the state.
Obong Victor Attah's Council of Elders should rather convene a meeting to ask Governor Udom Emmanuel the truth about the ownership of the 25 industries his administration constantly claims to have established including the Ibom Air. It should be more worrisome to Obong Victor Attah that the foundations he laid for the State as well as welding the people together has been ruined by Udom Emmanuel-led administration. Not only has Udom Emmanuel so disunited the people, his administration only prefers to site projects in Awa Iman (his village) in Onna Local Government Area.
Did he, Obong Victor Attah, do same as Governor? How many projects did he take to Asutan Ekpe in Ibesikpo Asutan Local Government Area? Udom Emmanuel has constantly put forward half-truths and inconsistencies in facts and figures as to what the state receives and has expended. A regime that operates Nicodemusly and occasionally by-passing the State House of Assembly to collect huge loans lacks transparency and has failed the people.
It is not Udom Emmanuel that Obong Victor Attah should belabour to defend or project his preferred choice in the person of Umo Eno. When Eli failed to rein in his sons from their wicked ways, the family lost the power of inheritance (1 Samuel 2). Obong Victor Attah as a father should call Governor Udom Emmanuel to order. The plight of the people should be uppermost in his minds and his fellow elders. Let Udom Emmanuel take up his cross and face the consequences of his misrule, self-centredness and unwholesome political misadventure.
The Umo Eno political project is dead on arrival. That is the truth.
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