The Nation Newspaper

Tag: Godswill Obot Akpabio

  • ‘Akpabio can’t be written off in Akwa Ibom politics’

    Etekamba Umoren was Chief of Staff to former Akwa Ibom Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio. He was Secretary to the Government under Governor Udom Emmanuel. He spoke with BASSEY ANTHONY on the place of Senator Akpabio in the politics of the Southsouth state.

    Senator Godswill Akpabio is being perceived as a ruthless politician who plays god. As one of his close allies, is it true he plays god?

    It is a pity that human beings have such short memory. It is also unfortunate that our level of ingratitude has risen so high.

    Sometimes, I ask God to forgive us for our ingratitude. If God were to judge us from the angle of ingratitude towards Godswill Akpabio, some people will go to bed and not wake up. Now, to answer your question directly; I have known Godswill Akpabio for not less than 20 years. I knew him from when he was appointed commissioner. The Godswill Akpabio I know does not and has never played god.

    So, who is Godswill Akpabio?

    Godswill Akpabio is a very forgiving fellow; a very humane man, a man who loves his people, a man who gets hurt because he sees a fellow human being suffering. He feels the pain. Sometimes I read about what people write about him and I ask myself is it the same Godswill Akpabio that I know? I think if they are all sincere with themselves, over 99.99 percent of the things people write against him are untrue. He is a human being too and you must leave out the 1% because he errs; he is not an angel. Most of the write-ups you see against Godswill Akpabio are politically motivated. The authors of the writers of the falsehood against Akpabio are paid to cook up those stories. My joy is that within themselves they know what they are writing is false. When a man is rising, some people think the best way is to put him down. The question is: after putting him down, what do you stand to gain? Will you take over his position? No, this is because it wasn’t meant for you. I think we need to be a lot more careful with the things we write and always remember that there is posterity and that there is a tomorrow.

    Akpabio was highly revered in the state and beyond, even outside the shores of this country but at some point the table turned. What really happened?

    He left the state and went up to the national level. The politics we play in the state is not the same politics played at the national. You will agree with me that when you are out there, you see things differently. He went there and saw things differently and moved over.

    Will we honestly say that he is the first politician in this country to move from one party to the other or that since he moved, no other person has moved or has he shut the way from other people to move?

    What is so special about his moving from PDP to APC that will warrant all manner of hatred and negative venting of venom? Why would a so-called man of God invoke curses on a man who has not done anything wrong to him?

    Don’t you think it is because he didn’t consult some stakeholders in the state before moving from PDP to APC?

    What was he consulting for? Did he consult you when he made you smile and live big or made you go to school? Those that are asking about consultation, did he consult them when he was made them commissioners, speaker, special assistants, senior special assistant on technical matters or Deputy governor? Let’s not allow sentiments to cloud our sense of judgment.

    Are you saying Akpabio is being demonized for no genuine reason?

    Some years back when I was his Chief of Staff, we attended a burial in Uruan. He was the Governor then, and Reverend Uma Ukpai was preaching.

    He said: “Akpabio, don’t be bothered about what people say or write as long as you are doing the right thing. Its only the mango tree that bears ripe fruit that receives the largest number of stones” if a mango tree doesn’t bear fruit, no child, even a mad man will not throw stones at him. There must be something very positive about Akpabio that some people are trying to dim. In a nutshell, what Rev Uma Ukpai said is what I stand for. If Akpadio went to the National assembly and was sleeping or unproductive, no one will say a thing. So the issue now is why him?

    Akpabio’s era as governor has been linked to killings and kidnappings thereby portraying him as a violent person. Is he a violent man?

    How many people did Akpabio kill or kidnap that will make you say Akpabio is a violent person? For the period I worked with him as permanent secretary and Chief of Staff, I was not aware of any killings or kidnappings. How much was the ransom people paid that had to do with Akpabio? During Godswill’s era, things happened but were they done by him? There are things happening now, is it all the fault of the President?  Therefore, the killings have nothing to do with Akpabio. This is a case of calling a dog a bad name just because we want to hang it.

    Considering Akpabio’s high political profile and large following, there were expectations that he ought to have pulled so many of his supporters to the APC but that didn’t happen. What went wrong?

    It is often said that he who pays the pipe calls the tune. In all honesty and all truth, those who sat back did so for personal reasons.

    Ask them to their faces if they really believed in their staying back.

    Are they sincere to the system or is it what they can get from the system that is uppermost to them? About the elections, we all participated in the elections and saw what happened; it was INEC versus Akpabio, the state government and PDP versus APC. Don’t allow anyone to deceive you. Igini did a yeoman job. I am sure his conscience will tell him he didn’t do well. We have done elections in this state but I have never seen such level of manipulation. It was the worst election in this state. Using Ikot Ekpene as an example, there are 10 local government areas that make up the senatorial district and you use the card reader for just a local government leaving out nine. It was just a plot to make sure Akpabio lose the election. If he was a violent person, the very day the returning officer absconded instead of reading the result would have been the day the violence would have been seen, because there would have been spontaneous reaction.

    Since he has lost the election, can he be written off politically?

    He can’t be written off politically. He has not lost the election. The tribunal has not said anything. The returning officer was not supposed to announce the result in Uyo, but at the senatorial district headquarters. Rather, after collation of result, he disappeared for five hours.

    Let’s assume in worst case scenario, after the proceedings of the tribunal and Senator Akpabio doesn’t make it back to the senate, what do you think the state will be missing?

    What if Akpabio wins? You should consider that too. There are two sides to a coin, rather than ask what will be the fate of Akwa Ibom if he loses. What if he wins? I am confident he will win.

  • Tribute to Akpabio at 56

    When the current political dispensation started in 1999, nobody had the fore knowledge that a man with the name Godswill Obot Akpabio would be among the stars that would later dominate the political firmament of the nation.

    Even when he made his entry into Akwa Ibom State government courtesy of Obong Victor Attah who brought him into his administration, everything appeared normal as he gradually learnt the rope of government business. Having seen it all as a participant observer, Akpabio felt the state could better with someone with the right acumen and political sagacity at the helm of affairs. Against the wish of the powers-that- be at the time, he took up the gauntlet and embarked on what some saw as daring the lion in its dens and won convincingly despite the fact that Obong Attah had a preferred candidate.

    Akpabio would no doubt be thanking his stars today for taking that long, tortuous road to take his people to where they truly belong.

    Though the state was founded by the military government of Gen. Ibrahim Babangida, on September 23, 1987, it only came to national and international consciousness, under the Akpabio Administration whose government is credited with “uncommon transformation”

    The “Uncommon transformation” tag is not for nothing as Akpabio completely changed the narrative in a state which was in dire need of a leader to tap its human and material resources for the good of its people.

    This was because before the coming of his administration, illiteracy and poverty stared the people in the face, such that many of her indigenes took up menial jobs, especially cooks in such big cities as Lagos and Abuja.

    The future also appeared rather bleak for children in the state, many of whom were either in the farms assisting their parents or on the streets hawking during school hours.

    The coming of Akpabio changed the story, not only did he make education free and compulsory; he ensured training and re-training and better package for teachers for improved productivity.

    He joined forces with the State House of Assembly by enacting a law that forbade children from trading during school hours. This strategy was to have multiplier effects never envisaged by Akpabio as private schools in the state bore the brunt with increased enrolment in public schools.

    Unlike those days, when public schools were associated with ramshackle structures, Akwa Ibom schools became a beauty to behold as structures comparable to what obtains in other climes surfaced across the state.

    Curiously, the administration was the ninth in the row of administrations that had governed the state, earning the appellation “miracle of the South – South”

    One of the biggest lessons that Nigeria can indeed learn from Akpabio is the capacity to use tourism to attract investments as no first time visitor to the state would not jump at the opportunity to visit a second time.

    Akwa Ibom is today one of the few states that can boast of an anti-flooding strategic plans which no doubt helps the state in battling climatic challenges. My recent visit to Katowice, Poland, for a UN convention on climate change shows Akpabio as a man who saw tomorrow in view of the giant steps taking to tackle climatic conditions of the state.

    Uyo, the state capital, today boasts of 13.8 billion naira underground drainage channel to stem challenges posed by flood and erosion.

    As he marks his 56th birthday today, I join millions of his admirers across the world in saying happy birthday to you, sir.

    • By Emma Umohinyang

    Katowice, Poland.

  • It is as difficult today to find a space in prison as it is to find space in a classroom … and Fayose goes to the EFCC!

    It was only Godswill Obot Akpabio that planned and built a modern, executive prison during his tenure as a state governor, others have not been too concerned in that direction.

    Today we are told that prisons across the nation are terribly over-crowded with jail breaks from Ilorin to Uyo and everywhere in between. It is the same overcrowding to be found in Nigerian public schools, colleges and Universities.

    For the parents, many cannot send their children to private schools because of the steep fees but in the decrepit/free primary schools, the “lucky” ones who are already admitted are taught in classrooms where there is barely enough room to get from the front row of desks to the back. The classrooms are packed with students! And I’m calling that lucky, you may wander?

    Well, the other alternative facing the remaining (millions) of school-age Nigerians is to join the swelling ranks of out-of-school children roaming all about.

    The gross inadequacy of schools, especially at the basic level is a nationwide malaise.

    Prisons are filled to capacity too – it may be because of the state of our prisons that the EFCC built some cozy “cells” for politicians so that their transition from immunity to the loss of it would be a little easier.

    “By the Grace of God, I will be at the EFCC tomorrow by 1:00pm. I am not a coward”.

    So it was, that Peter Ayodele Fayose, after this pronouncement, arrived at the EFCC Headquarters in Abuja at a perfectly synchronized time of one o’clock in the afternoon of Tuesday, Sixteenth October – the exact same time as the kick-off of the inauguration of his successor, Dr. John Kayode Fayemi at Ado- Ekiti.

    The former Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum even arrived the premises in an in-your-face Tee shirt, as he turned himself in for interrogation at the commission!

    Fayose has made up his mind that his romance with the EFCC is going to be a long one.

    Yes he has said that he would make clarifications on his running of Ekiti State affairs from 2014 to 2018. He says he has no skeletons in his cupboard and has even said he “never collected any money from Dasuki” (a current prison inmate and listed on the Executive Travel Ban List).

    But….last weekend, the immediate past governor of Ekiti State had stated in Abuja that, “it will be easier to work and fight, not being a governor. As soon as I leave EFCC, I will talk more than what I’ve been talking before”. Uh-oh Fayose– the EFCC has never ever liked such talks (The Commission has now obtained a court order enabling them to detain Fayose for two weeks)!!

    Plateau – Where is General Alkali?

    When I think of the lovely holidays and visits to Jos back in the day; and the peace and tranquility of the place, I’m in pains at the news of bloody crises and senseless killings coming out of that lovely mini-London, with all its happy foreigners and nationals. Plateau was truly the home of Peace and Tourism as named.

    The chilling news now is the mysterious disappearance of a very senior army officer. Major General Idris Alkali Rtd has simply vanished, not seen since he left home on September Third, and all we are being told is that his car has been found in a pond. A car in a pond?

    Strange, doesn’t it sound?

    Is General Alkali still alive? What is the latest on the search for the man? When is the IGP, or DIG going to Plateau?

    By the time an Army General goes missing and is not found, what then is fate of the defenseless, innocent citizens living in Plateau?

    The saddest thing is that Alkali was only transiting through Jos, his final destination was Bauchi from Abuja, but the suspicion is that he ran into groups of protesters of killings that had taken place the day before his ill-fated trip.

    On the evening of Sunday 2nd September, gunmen had killed about 13 people at least, in Jos South Local Government Area-the same place Alkali went missing the next day. A search and rescue team was dispatched from Army Headquarters, but now, over one month later, no more is known.

    This is a man who had retired barely one month before, as the Chief of Administration, Army Headquarters.

    The downside now is that the army has reportedly laid siege to the community (Du District).

    Should Not The Police Instead Have Sent In Crack Detectives To The Community, Immediately After The September Massacre?

    It is the police that need to be there now to find the missing General. As it is, the soldiers there are making arbitrary arrests and parade of suspects. They debase the men of the community by stripping them naked in public and whipping them if found in the streets. The military must be cautioned to show restraint in relating with civil society.

    While I appeal for the police to intensify the search for Alkali, my thoughts go out to the General’s wife Mrs. Salamatu Alkali, and share in her pains.

  • Era of medical tourism over, says Akpabio

    Senate Minority Leader, Godswill Obot Akpabio, is optimistic that Nigerian medical personnel have the capacity to deliver proper medicare if given the right incentives.

    He made this observation when he visited the Ibom Multi Specialist Hospital in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, for medical checkup

    The former governor, who was attended to by the Chief Cardiologist, Dr Venkita Suresh, declared shortly after the checkup, that the era of going outside the country for medical solutions were over.

    “The days of flying outside Nigeria to Europe, America, India and other places of the world for medical attention are over; those days are behind us now. Why would anyone think of flying abroad for medical treatment when the best is at his doorstep? I have confidence in this hospital and that is why I have come to do my routine checkup here, and with the quality of medical personnel here, our people and visitors are surely saved.”

    On his part, Dr. Suresh said “Akpabio has been properly attended to as it is the practice with ISH.We are not surprised that he is here for medical care. People now fly in from different parts of the world to Akwa Ibom for medical solutions, so why would he not be here for his checkup?” adding, “you have got the best in Africa in the area of medicine.”

  •  Akpabio unveils infrastructural projects

    Akwa Ibom State Governor, Chief Godswill Obot  Akpabio, has changed the skyline of his state  by the number of projects he has delivered since the inception of his administration.

    Speaking at the unveiling of the projects by President Goodluck Jonathan, the governor in a statement signed by his Information Commissioner, Mr Aniekan Umanah, said the latest project is  the new  Governor’s Office, which was  conceived to meet the demands of an ever-changing world.

    ”It is not only ICT compliant; it has all the facilities needed for e governance and contemporary governance. It replaces a building we met, at the inception of this administration, which lacked space for visitors and facilities for the administrative controls  needed in today’s world,” he said.

    On the completion date,  he said though they estimated  18 months but the building was finished in just eight months. According to him, “this is a proof that we are running Government at the speed of light, because we know that time waits for no one’.

    On the pipeline is the  Akwa Ibom State Stadium, which  will be a 30,000 seater stadium with a banquet hall, proximate conveniences for all spectators, restaurants on each floor including other amenities. It is planned to meet global standard in stadium architecture.

    On why his administration is investing in sports, he said the global sports industry is four times larger than the automobile manufac-turing industry, and seven times larger than the film industry.

    According to him, despite a global economic slowdown, a study by Price Waterhouse Coopers predicts a revenue growth rate of 3.7 per cent ($145.3 billion) for the sports industry by 2015 and the state intends to be part of this action.

    The governor  recalled  that the state government  took up the construction of the Ikot Ekpene-Aba Federal Road and the Ikot Ekpene – Itu-Odukpani-Calabar Federal Road  to maximise the Deep Sea Port and the Ibom International Airport, which has facilities for cargo flights.

    Responding President Goodluck Jonathan,  who was the special guest on the occasion, asked other governors to learn from Akpabio  in his infrastructure devlopment  in the state. He said: “In coming to inauguration of the new Governor’s Office, Uyo, and laying the foundation stone of the 30,000-seater Akwa Ibom State Stadium, we celebrate the exemplary leadership and patriotism of Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio of Akwa Ibom State. He has shown us what we can achieve, when we seek pragmatic solutions to our national problems.”

    He also said:  I am not here because this edifice is beautiful; I am here because the principle of democratic accountability is thriving here in Akwa Ibom State. It was this principle, which, apparently, led the Akwa Ibom State Government to partner with the Federal Government and to tar some of the Federal roads in its territory for the benefit of Nigerians and to save the lives of Nigerians. What is morally right, cannot be politically wrong.”

    He confirmed Federal Govern-ment’s readiness to partner with the state  as co-investors in the Akwa Ibom State funded Maintenance, Repair and Overhaul (MRO) facility at the Ibom International Airport, and to turn it into a National Hanger.

    The character of the stadium,  according to the statement, is created by its unique physical appearance that will be enclosed by a white triangular shaped out skin that wraps around the entire stands area made of acrylic glass.

    The main criteria of the stadium concept he said are classic multi-purpose stadium layout with running tracks, two-tiered seating arrangement excellent viewing conditions, arena with football pitch and eight-lane 400-metre standard track including complete athletic facilities in the segment of the field and access system of the tiers with “Vomitories”, among others.

    The Information Commissioner also revealed that the governor’s office has, among others, the governor’s conference hall, courtesy call room lounge, multimedia studio Executive Council chambers with video conferencing facilities, among others.