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I miss one of my radio slots, Cup of Coffee. The satire should return to the airwaves in no time. If you ever followed it and therefore remember it, this is your Rambler Friend. The torrents of nostalgia and the hunger to relive that past notwithstanding, I am in no mood right now to speak in that tongue.
Instead, I have come today to share a word or two. In the 2023 ballot build-up, the man who is now governor of my home state of Akwa Ibom said something about the election battle being between forces of light and darkness. For context, the man who last June crosstituted to All Progressives Congress, was at that time Peoples Democratic Party standard bearer. Pastor Umo Eno, Ph.D. might very well have been speaking about the very next election (slated for 2027).
Because, indeed, with Peoples Democratic Party repositioning and restructuring and reevolving, a small fire might very well -very soon- become an inferno. Mark these statements, even if you cannot. Plus, implosion is coming. Those who thought that PDP was good-for-nothing shall come running back; earnestly seeking cover.
Pity, so-called former members of PDP currently insulting the party: where shall they seek refuge? What shall happen to members colluding with external forces to rubbish the party? Those who thought they were untouchable having been kicked out, cannot lightweight miscreant members see that their place shall very soon be empty? And, judging by the obvious surefootedness of the party’s new National Working Committee led by national chairman Kabiru Tanimu Turaki, SAN, former minister of special duties and intergovernmental affairs, cannot cynics see that PDP is back?
All Progressives Congress should be worried. Even more worried should be politicians and public office holders who have shown PDP untold disrespect and ingratitude. Already, everyone can see the sign and size of what is to come. The other day, Plateau state governor, Caleb Manasseh Mutfwang, signposted the political toing and froing loading nationwide.
After months of tarring the road he would take to APC, with the state assembly complete with House of Representatives members already gone ahead to prepare a befitting place for him, the Plateau state chief exec. suddenly chickened out. Truth to tell, with the road already well paved the Plateau helmsman did not just wake up to have sense. No, it is intervening twin events that proved to him clearly that his was going to be a case of out of the frying pan into the fire. On one hand, PDP had shown clearly it was determined to rescue itself and, on the other, APC stakeholders in the state had rather uncharacteristically warned that their party was not ready to welcome the sitting governor.
Shall APC eventually regret this one arrogance? We shall see. Meanwhile, Plateau state as things stand remains one leg, executively, in PDP and the other, legislatively, in APC. I see you find it funny but really we should be crying.
Should the new PDP tolerate fair-weather members like Gov. Mutfwang and the millions like him waiting in the wings? Of course not, but this is not a church question. This is a political question. Alas, this political question can only be answered with a church mind which answer is called political solution!
Back in my home state, a PDP Akwaibomight, a lawyer, who hails from Nsit Atai local government area, said something quite profound the other fortnight. He was asking why people burn brooms when they crosstitute from All Progressives Congress but not one PDP quitter has burnt even one UMBRELLA so far. Everyone knows what everyone knows. PDP is an old firewood -if you know, you know.
The 2027 governorship poll in Akwa Ibom will therefore be more than just an election. It will be a no-holds-barred referendum on light or darkness, honesty or deception and above all, on whether someone we feel betrayed us can himself be betrayed. The man in Government House, Uyo needs neither supporters nor opponents for that election. What he needs, and he had better start conducting his housekeeping now, is a verifiable account of the stewardship that PDP “foolishly” offered him in 2023.
With eyes closed, I can readily list a dozen areas in which Gov. Eno must come clean today, not tomorrow. One, going forward, he must prioritise Nsit Ubium, Akwaibomights and residents in that order. He must not wait until he leaves Hilltop Mansion, Uyo to suffer the venom of this unspoken truth. The idea of our governor treating Nsit Ubium or Akwa Ibom second class like skipping an Akwa Ibom person or event for someone or something extraneous and in our land is both abominable and unthinkable.
Pastor Umo Eno, Ph.D. should please stop this mannerism. He should remember that the only place on the surface of this earth that Akwa Ibom or an Akwaibomight can hope to have full honours is right here at home (in Akwa Ibom). Nobody and nothing should ever dispossess us of that inalienable right even if we were doing a comedy skit. As we all know, our motherland, Nigeria, itself is too busy to care for this golden-egg-laying subnational!
Two, the current governor of Akwa Ibom must cease climbing tree 2027 while holding stuff in both hands. No one has ever succeeded like that, no one ever shall. He must eschew the annoying hypocrisy of clapping with one hand for PDP members who purportedly support him in APC while simultaneously being a scarecrow to others on state payroll who still defend PDP nonetheless.
He had no business sacking Messrs Joseph Ikpak and Felix Ekuri, last week, just because they accompanied the man he himself calls political father to PDP national convention in Ibadan. In fact, if anything, sacking them was petty, sledge hammer-ish and ungovernorship. It is indecent, for especially a pastor, to approbate and reprobate. Gov. Umo Eno runs Akwa Ibom United but desperately disunites the same state down under once anyone heeds his call to feel free in other than APC.
Three, this governor must honestly start alleviating poverty, and be seen to be doing so. He has to stop spreading poverty which he may not know he has been doing in the last nearly three years. Let his appointees look like governorship appointees. Let funds be released to ministries, departments and agencies of government so they do their work.
Government, especially a democracy, is not a banking institution. There is no time to over-save as we see under the Umo Eno governorship. Save to do big things tomorrow, yes but do not allow today small and big things of government and the people (requiring urgent attention) to suffer. This governor must loosen the belt on our tummy: Akwaibomights are tired of suffering in plenty all because their leader is saving for rainy days which in any case are already here!
Four, let this governor attempt surprise visits to some government places. Even he, who has a big problem with releasing government money for government work, shall weep over the working conditions of the people he thinks he did political favour tagged appointment. Most have no office, no conducive place and in very many cases no money, nothing to work with. So, nothing is happening.
For instance, does this governor know that, in the age of Pastor Umo Eno, Akwa Ibom civil servants and political appointees at home, in Abuja and in Lagos sometimes -most times, really- deploy personal resources to do government work? This is a function of systemic delays in the release of imprest or subvention. How should a commissioner or permanent secretary or senior special assistant or special assistant or director or personal assistant et al keep the engine of government running without these special funds? Or, does Gov. Umo Eno not care?
Five, let the governor of Akwa Ibom state commission or engage and pay contractors. Being a civil service state, money in the hands of contractors is an elixir to the local economy. The people who hail from and live in a billionaire state such as Akwa Ibom cannot and should not languish as perpetual thousandaires. Since the rains are retreating, it goes without saying that this is the opportune time for the state to yet again become one big construction site.
Six, another area to aim better, differently and higher is the way this governor communicates. It is not humility to seek to make the people under him look like beggars or like fools, every time he addresses them (especially in public). Nobody shall die of hunger or lack or both for playing opposition. A good father raises their children in ways that the big and small as well as the rich and poor can stand before them.
For a governor, a Christian and a flock commander to say that those criticising him cannot stand before his children is a serious comedown. At once, it speaks to an insensitive leader who comes across as haughty and mean and too good for those he leads even as it beams an unnecessary searchlight on own family. To be sure, no insults and such other complex human relationship fallouts that I call un-PRs should easily push any leader, let alone a Nigerian state governor, into overdrive to the point of displaying a colour unnatural to such a one. Because, at the end, the question will always be: is this the real Pastor Umo Eno, Ph.D. or did the pressures of public office brew another version?
Seven, this governor must strive to be a promise keeper. Granted, nature hardly allows perfection. But, every person of honour in a position of power must target to fulfill at least 75/80% of own word. Please make it difficult or impossible for people, who claim that you deceived them or that you elected to not keep your promise to them, to find a witness.
When circumstances or situations or realities or persons or situations or indeed yourself make your promise unfulfillable, the only best step is to exercise wisdom. Rather than carry on as if flying birds never perch, go back to person(s) involved and either explain why the promise can no longer remain active or together edit it. A promise made to gain or sustain public office is the worst debt to owe in the Third World! Please read that again and smile.
Eight, flowing from seven above, never let people know you want them to know that you are smart. Yes, let people know you are smart but never allow them to know that you are dying to prove it to them. Such brilliant dereliction can be counterproductive to power two, as it makes others feel inferior, less of themselves and in extreme cases, used. This is how resentment germinates and grows.
The truth is that there is no smartest man. One man can be smart, a woman can be smarter while a boy or girl who strolls into that set can emerge the smartest. What is more, the smartest can be outsmarted by the no-so-smart and the beat goes on. Ever wondered why half-literate black boys daily swindle the very educated Westerners so cheaply?
Nine, this governor must go beyond himself; one, to guide and two, to motivate his team. They need it badly so that the narrative can change out there in the street. Yes, he favoured them by the appointments but he needs to raise the bar of the favour by regularly servicing them. More than anyone else, he needs to be interested in the wellbeing and welfare of his team members.
This is critically important, especially now when refueling should be in progress for retaxiing. He should not mind what he thinks is the case. It does not look good, at all. It should be an issue of particular concern to him if at the end, which is fast approaching, the men and women who toil day and night under him are not anywhere near fit enough to represent him befittingly and proudly in the hereafter.
Ten, Gov. Umo Eno must stop taking too much for granted. For crying out loud, he should never forget his calling and position as a pastor. The way he has dealt with PDP is to say the least unfair and unkind. He abandons a party but he does everything to not allow it to function, more like one divorcing a spouse but still hangs around to ensure no new entrant.
Is that not witchcraft? Let Gov. Umo Eno stop what he is doing to PDP in the state. His style causes anger and worsens his 2027 chances, if he does not know. To understand the extent of damage he has done, let it be on record that no reparation shall ever be enough to undo it. And, he must know it is not yet Uhuru: his vindication for leaving PDP shall only come on May 29, 2027!
Eleven, one had thought that this governor with his private sector background shall have come with truckloads of ad hoc goodies. How is it that 18 months to go, we have yet seen an Umo Eno-created genuine and sustainable millionairedom of Akwaibomights? Would we at the end asterisk this as yet another lost opportunity when viewed through the prism of the colossal inflow into state coffers over the last 30 months? Is 18 months too short a time to achieve this magic?
Well, he can and should try, by starting something today, now. In place of his peanut grants and so-called empowerment that has empowered nobody hitherto, let it become state policy to monumentally support Akwaibomights who have raised their not-less-than decade-old concern with long term soft loans. Think of what this can do for, and what jobs can be created at, Akwa Ibom brands like J. G. Ekanem & Company Ltd, AssuR Electronics, Unique Furniture, Bertola Tools, Ebo Gadgets, Nifty Vogue, Tiko Fashion, Treasure Island, Royalline Technologies, Uyai Cuisines, South Central Records, Nsik Motors, KFM Couture, Everything Organic, Gem 28, Dee’s Kitchen, Kemcy’s Touch, Start Innovation Hub, Rootcare Pharmacy, Hensek Integrated, Monty Suites, Rent Me Nigeria, Banana Island Ltd, et al. Think of where Akwa Ibom would be on the global business map if our frontline farmers, ideators, manufacturers, entertainers, etc. could interface and interplay directly with China, Dubai, for instance.
Twelve, and the last, this governor should worry about his post-governorship years. I have heard him once or twice boasting that he is not worried about legacy or rather about not having any legacy project. Always almost, that sounds hollow to me. He must immediately think up something.
Behind Arc. (Obong) Victor Bassey Attah, Akwaibomights laud him beyond his onshore/offshore dichotomy fight for Ibom Hotels and Gold Resort as well as for dreaming up what is today Victor Attah International Airport among others. Behind the man who is today Nigeria’s Senate President, Sen. Godswill Obot Akpabio, Akwaibomights celebrate his governorship era beyond the never-before-seen philanthropy he brought to government for the five-star government house and international stadium among others. Behind Gov. Udom Emmanuel (as he then was) Akwaibomights wallow in the euphoria not only of his policy of inclusivemania but also for the end of discussion Ibom Air and 21-floor Dakkada Towers among others. Pray, what shall we remember Pastor Umo Eno, Ph.D. for?: model health centres, compassion homes; model primary schools; buildings which very soon are either abandoned or remodelled?
Having said all that, let the point be made that this piece is not criticism at all and even if it is, it certainly is not in bad faith. This writer played frontline role in the making of Gov. Umo Eno in 2023, and only craves the best for this state. When it matters most, the attacks and counterattacks now flying all over social media shall be immaterial. As we always get to see, even those grudgingly shouting hosanna today might well sing another song; from as early as the wee months of next year.
Rather than fall to distraction and attempt to answer every petition which is the right of the citizenry, the hotelier turned politician should focus on the job for which PDP -against the run of play- hired him for Akwa Ibom. Furthermore, he should be a gentleman and apologise today for the euphemism or rather the deceit he calls Akwa Ibom United and go on to run his APC set-up in peace. It is so clear even the blind can see what he is doing from the pulpit of governance. Meanwhile, just so he sees my heart, I hereby beg APC in the name of God to accord him even half of the respect by PDP between 2018/2019 and 2025; the same PDP to which he contributed nothing; the same PDP he is desperate today to strangulate.
God bless Nigeria!
