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Tag: State governor

  • How accountable is your state governor?

    How accountable is your state governor?

    When last, if at all, did the Governor of your state call a press conference to give an account of the situation of the state, beyond occasional appearances, for example, to address the insecurity situation or launch a project? Has your Governor ever disclosed how much money came into the state treasury from Federal allocations and Internally Generated Revenue the previous month, quarter, or year? In short, how accountable has your state Governor been to the people he was elected to serve?

    Let us think together about these questions. For a start, let’s consider a few factors responsible for the poor situation in the states and the Governors’ lack of accountability. For now, the discussion will be limited to (a) corruption; (b) lack of political literacy; (c) poverty; and (d) lack of an effective system of accountability.

    Corruption is endemic in Nigeria, and it takes various forms, including bribery, inflated contracts (to disguise cutbacks), and outright embezzlement of public funds, often through diversion into private or business accounts associated with politicians, political appointees, civil servants, and/or their surrogates. Nevertheless, corruption is not unique to Nigeria. It is everywhere across the globe. What is peculiar about corruption in Nigeria is twofold, namely, the impunity with which corrupt practices thrive and the degree to which the practices are condoned, especially by the respective local communities of the politicians, political appointees, and civil servants in question.

    Corruption is rife within and across different levels of government. The focus here is on state governments. Most state governors are corrupt. There are several reasons for this. Let’s take a typical newly elected state governor. As soon as he/she realises the enormous power of the office, he/she begins to plan for a second term. By the end of the first year in office, the focus begins to shift to raising funds for reelection campaign. The state treasury is often the starting point, using various methods, including saving part of the so-called security vote, which, in some states, is as high as N750 million a month, which the Governor is not obligated to account for.

    Let’s now assume that the governor is reelected. Again, as soon as possible, he/she begins to accumulate funds for running for Senate in his/her Senatorial District. Alternatively, he/she may even want to run for President or support a presidential candidate financially so he/she may be nominated as a Minister. Some of them may also want to retire from active politics once they feel that they have accumulated enough money to sustain them for the rest of their lives. Remember that, besides their savings, they are treated to a fat severance package and monthly pension, which varies from state to state. In addition, they keep a couple of vehicles, drivers, police escort, kitchen staff, and other assistants for which their states or the relevant government agency, such as the police, allegedly continue to pay.

    Read Also: Treason: Police place N20m bounty on Briton, Nigerian

    While corruption prevents the governors from fully accounting for state resources, because of the mismatch between revenue and genuine expenditures, political illiteracy prevents the public from pressing for accountability. I use the term illiteracy here in two senses: One, illiteracy is used in the sense of inability to read and write, which applies to about 40 percent of the Nigerian population, much more so in the North than in the South.

    Two, it is also used in the sense of political illiteracy, despite the dual ability to read and write. Many literate Nigerians are politically illiterate in this sense. Some of them may know that governors should be accountable, but they will not hold the governors to account because they are “eating” or hope to “eat” from the governors’ government. Both groups of illiterates take part in singing and dancing in praise of Governors for doing their duty, such as tarring a road or building a public facility, such as a school, hospital, or clinic. This practice has the inverse effect of making the governors feel they have achieved, and they use the praise singing as a surrogate for accountability.

    Anther factor that prevents the electorate from holding governors accountable is poverty, which makes them satisfied with tokens, such as rural roads, boreholes, or a poverty alleviation measure, such as N5,000 or a scoop of rice. Many of them have no idea that whatever they get from their state government is their right and that it is the governor’s duty to provide them. Unfortunately, the illiterate and poor electorate has been led to believe that whatever problems they have are from Abuja, and that their enemy is the federal government and not their Governor. That’s why protests are directed at the Federal government instead of state governments.

    It is the dual scourge of illiteracy and poverty that makes vote-buying central to our electoral practice, in addition to lack of demand for accountability. Save for occasional investigative journalism and a few civil society organisations, which demand accountability, sometimes by going to court to demand some records, little or nothing is heard about the performance of state governments.

    Lack of accountability is aided by the lack of a standardised system of evaluation and accountability by state governments. Take, for example, the case of governor Simon Lalong of Plateau (2015-2023), who claimed that he bought 400 tractors for N5.6 billion for farmers in his state as part of the state’s agricultural production scheme, even after each participating farmer paid a deposit of N1.5 million to the state for the equipment. However, upon investigation by Premium Times, it was discovered that only about 90 tractors were bought and fewer (just 40) were displayed when President Muhammadu Buhari commissioned the project in 2018. Yet, the unknowing electorate was recruited to sing and dance on the occasion (see The true story of ‘400 tractors’ ex-governor. Lalong claimed his govt bought for Plateau, Premium Times, July 4, 2024).

    It is against the above backgrounds that the governors’ performances since May 29, 2023, should be assessed. It is pertinent to emphasise here that since fuel subsidy was removed by President Bola Ahmed Tinubu at the inception of his administration on that date, state allocations have more than doubled. Yet, there have been no corresponding improvements in people’s lives, despite the distribution of funds and other resources for palliatives, including cash distribution, agricultural development, transport facility, and infrastructural development.

    How will the governors be made accountable? That’s a topic for another day.

  • Scores wounded as party Agents disrupt collation of results in Imo

    The final Collation of the results of the governorship election in Imo State was disrupted in the early hours of Monday by party agents.

    Trouble started at about 5.10am when the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) Agent, Uche Onyeocha prevented the Returning Officer in charge of Ideato South Council Area from announcing the result.

    Ideato South is the home Local Government Area of the State Governor, Rochas Okorocha and a major stronghold of the Action Alliance.

    Before the altercation, results of ten Local Government Areas had already being announced, with PDP and AA winning five LGAs each.

    He alleged that the result was padded and cannot be accepted. All entreaties by the State Resisent Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Francis Ezeonu, to allow the Collation to continue were rebuffed by the viciously angry PDP Agent, who tore the result sheets placed on the table.

    At that point, other party agents pounced on him and there was a free for all. Journalists and other observers, who were monitoring the Collation, scampered to safety as the Police and other security agents tried to calm the situation.

    The melee consequently sparked heavy fighting among the supporters of the various political parties that were camped around the INEC office throught the night.

    Scores were wounded and several vehicles vandalised. As at the time of filling this report, the Collation has been suspended, while the party Agents for the PDP, Uche Onyeocha and Action Alliance (AA),  Steve Asimobi were arrested and whisked away by Policemen to an unknown location.

  • Your children will be slaves

    Nigeria is filled with beautiful boobs, human mass with luscious glands for politicians to suck.

    Ask the presidency, your state governor, legislator, the itinerant lobbyist and power broker, and they would oblige you the adventures of their souls atop thickset spoils.

    To this conniving band, the electorate is simply a mass of organs by which they nourish their lusts. Nigeria is their jungle, an eden of boobs and wildlife. In this degenerate nirvana they inhabit, they survive by preying on an electorate afflicted with mouths like the parrot’s and the will of a catfish.

    When brackish waters recede, the catfish burrows deep into mud earth but that hardly prevents the fisherman from yanking it out of its filthy haven. Picture the electorate as catfish and the fisherman as the country’s ruling class. Nigeria becomes brackish waters and she recedes.

    Nigerians love burrowing into proverbial mud earth to evade negativity. They scurry deep into unlikely havens – ethno-religious bigotry and other sentimental foolery – to evade the violence of governance, savagely doled out to them by the ruling class.

    In the crevices of mud earth, they immerse in filthy fluid. They soak in shameful rivulets like sanitary towel and hope to emerge sparkling clean.

    It’s a familiar scene, a Nigerian reality that often resounds like the fable of doomed Odysseus and the labouring ships.

    At the backdrop of this shameful proceedings, the argument persists in academia, social and political circuits, that the future is blurry and bleak because of the youth’s absence in politics. But I maintain that by Nigerian standards, ‘the youth’  are in politics.

    ‘Youthful men and women’ in their 60s, 70s and 80s control the country’s ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and major opposition platform, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

    To sustain their legacies, their clannish pride covet incestuous bond with self – nurturing, dark, chthonian parts of their innate nature. Hence Nigeria’s youthful-senior oligarchs impose their wards as successors and the country’s administrators even as they molest boondocks young in a never-ending cycle of sleaze and ethical pedophilia. But the latter are hardly the preys they are thought to be.

    They are willing participants in a dehumanising ritual of violence, biological and mental retardation. From the hopeless to the vain, the presumptuous and credulous, the country pulsates with nourishing boobs. Unlike the literal, fleshy sacs, often the delight of old and young, the Nigerian boob is neither pouch nor sac but human youth.

    It’s 2018, and the image persists of the nation’s youth as human assertions imagined in degenerate stillness, by specific and random politicians. Unlike the artist’s immobile masterpiece, sculpted in bronze and stone, the youth evolve like plasticine, easily malleable and amenable to devious politicians’ plots.

    As 2019 approaches, the country’s ruling class once again perfects its grand plots and counter-plots to exploit the youth, and preserve its ill-gotten wealth and tyranny. The youth predictably become willing pawns in the designs of the criminal ruling class.

    From the herdsmen murders in Benue, Boko Haram’s terrorism, Niger Delta militancy to random political killings and rumblings in Rivers, Taraba, the youth become the nub of discord and deathly rally ripping the country apart.

    Many have attributed the afflictions of the youth to the dominance of a predatory ruling class and tiring recalcitrance of the younger generation, to engage in communal and national politics progressively. Many more readily diagnose and attribute the youth’s afflictions to structural banes, and the perverse culture of citizenship by which they are weaned and ushered into adulthood.

    In the wake of plausible and often farfetched analyses, too many ‘patriots’ conveniently absolve themselves of blame. Some propound the tragic theory of Nigerians as being innately incapable of self-determination and self-governance. Many have recommended the American example, the British palliative, the Chinese abracadabra and Malaysian ingenuity to mention a few, as the ultimate measures to resolve the nation’s ills. How?

    These arguments have overtime, attained a language of their own and thus evolved as a dialect of dissent and exaggerated self-abnegation. The nation’s academic elite, political and economic ruling classes frequently marshal clashing precepts as solutions and justifiable putdown of the ruling class and the lower working class as their politics dictate.

    A more damning view identifies the electorate’s persistent ‘claims to victimhood and sense of entitlement’ as whiny and symptomatic of a dense and irresponsible citizenry. Between the conflict of hyperboles and sentimental vituperation, Nigeria suffers the affliction of intellectual miscreants and promising youth-turned-foetal-adults.

    The coordinated tragedies afflicting our consciousness daily, append the only real structure to our lives as impoverished Nigerians. From burdensome realities of fast slipping youth, recurrent rites of bigotry to the ethical quandary of coping with strict moral codes of adulthood and ideal society, our lives obscure in purpose and meaning.

    Thus the scorning of ethics by the youth for fast, illicit riches even as ripples of their actions keep hundreds of millions more in binds of despair.

    Consequently, the revolutionary dissent that sprouts from oppression is pitiless and unbending. It radically splits our world into ‘insensitive ruling class’ and ‘clueless lower class,’ ‘elite’ and ‘downtrodden,’ ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ It fosters even more fragmented discord that continually pits Nigerian Christians against Muslims, Hausa against Igbo, Igbo against Yoruba, Yoruba against Ijaw.

    While this piece too may resound as hackneyed howl and lamentation, a regurgitation of towering monstrosities we have become, it need be said that our ultimate solution lies in our will to effect true change.

    None of the existing parties can foster a progressive nation. They are programmed to a recurring cycle of rebirth and self-destruct. In the vortex, they show occasional flashes of brilliance and daring against familiar odds. But it’s all smoke and mirrors.

    It’s about time the youth united to create and activate a party of true patriots, driven by men and women of unimpeachable character. The change Nigeria deserves is anathema to existent parties and ruling class. Real change requires neutering them in capacity and real time.

    To the youth, I say: “Failure to do this will sustain your status quo as slaves and your children as slaves to your oppressors’ children.”

     

  • Lagos to establish agency to manage health insurance scheme

    Lagos to establish agency to manage health insurance scheme

    …Partners firm to end medical tourism

     

    The Lagos State Government on Wednesday revealed plans to establish an agency by law to manage the State’s health insurance scheme expected to be rolled out soon.

    Briefing Government House Correspondents at the end of a meeting of the AXA Mansard Insurance Group with the State Governor, Mr. Akinwunmi Ambode, Commissioner for Health, Jide Idris said the Government would provide the enabling environment for the private sector to participate in the scheme with the view to increasing access to healthcare delivery.

    He said the Mansard Group has already indicated interest to be part of the State’s Health Insurance scheme, adding that Government would also appoint health insurance agents who would act between Government and the people to ensure the success of the scheme.

    “They (Mansard Group) have expressed their interest to partner with us on our health insurance scheme which we are rolling out very soon. It is a financing scheme for the system and a way of introducing reforms, re-jig the system and make it better.

    “We have provided that enabling environment in the sense that we are going to have an agency by law and every resident of Lagos is going to contribute to that purse. We will be using both public and private health providers and that is where AXA Mansard comes in with healthcare facilities.

    “Also to enable us process the programme properly, we are using what we call health insurance agents. Those ones will act between Government and the people with respect to providing the health insurance scheme,” Idris said.

    The Commissioner also said that AXA Mansard Insurance Plc would also be partnering with the State Government to deliver affordable and quality health care service to the people and transform the State into the medical tourism centre not just for Nigeria but Sub-Saharan Africa.
    Giving more details on the partnership, Chief Executive Officer of Mansard Insurance, Mrs Yetunde Ilori said having keenly followed the activities of the State Government and the passion of the Governor on healthcare delivery, the firm thought it important to partner with government in the best interest of the people.
    “We are here to show our intention to partner with the State Government in the area of healthcare delivery and we are about putting in place in Lekki a world class 150-bed hospital.

    “This is just a tiny bit compared to our need in Nigeria but we want to run like a hub and expand subsequently. We are going to have some Primary Healthcare Centres (PHCs) on the Mainland in Lagos and from there we go to entire Nigeria.

    “We are not in any way in doubt of the support as pledged at the concluded meeting with the Governor that this is not going to be an abandoned project because we are going to have all the support needed and in that wise, our intention is to make Lagos a kind of medical tourism centre where people in sub-Saharan Africa will be coming to Nigeria to receive healthcare instead of going to places like India,” Ilori said.

    On his part, Mansard’s Chief Client Officer, Mr Tosin Runsewe said the courtesy visit to Governor Ambode, apart from the partnership on healthcare delivery, was also to appreciate all the State Government has been doing in the last two years to revamp physical infrastructure in the State, adding that it was obvious that a lot had been done in scaling up ease of doing business and security.

    “We are looking at partnering with the State in terms of social infrastructure and healthcare clearly falls along this line and we are bringing the expertise of Axa Mansard to bear upon this particular area. We will executive, over the next couple of years, social infrastructure in the area of medical facilities and we will be linking this with the health insurance we have already to ensure that Lagos residents have access to medical care at affordable prices,” Runsewe said.

     

  • Ebonyi govt to begin seizure of foreign rice

    Ebonyi govt to begin seizure of foreign rice

    Ebonyi state government has set up a Task force to move into Ebonyi markets and confiscate foreign rice found.

    The State Governor, David Umahi who had merely pronounced ban on foreign rice earlier, disclosed this while performing the ground breaking ceremony of ultra-modern Kpirikpiri market on Monday.

    The governor insisted that for one to sell foreign rice in the land of Ebonyi, the person must ensure compliance with all due processes to certify it is not poisonous.

    He said,” We have set up a Taskforce and directed them to confiscate foreign rice found in our market. The person should give us the certificate of the quality of the rice, you have to prove the import duties you paid for it, where you brought it from and you give us Standard Organization of Nigeria certificate to prove that the rice is not poisonous.

    Umahi said foreign rice is poisonous as according to him, some of them were stored for more then 20 years abroad before it would be smuggled into the country.

    “That is why we have cases of cancer, cases of kidney failure and all kinds of diseases that our people were not known for. So you are taking risk if you are selling foreign rice in the land of Ebonyi,”he added.

    The governor who said Ebonyi government had enough rice and looking for distributors, advised people to register and become distributors of Ebonyi rice.

    He promised to open up modern markets in all the thirteen local government areas of the state and assured that the kpirikpiri market when completed would compete with any other modern market in the country.

    Meanwhile, the Special Adviser to the governor on Trade and Investment, Peter Obah have ordered all foreign rice dealers in the state to evacuate the produce from the state within two weeks.

    He said, “Foreign rice should be evacuated or moved out of the state within two weeks. Once again, no sale, buying or consumption of foreign rice in Ebonyi state”.

    ‘’This is to safeguard the lives of the people who now consume unhealthy substances packaged as foreign rice to Africa in recent times”.

    ‘’Action would commence to impound all foreign rice seen in the state within two weeks of this statement.”

     

  • NLC, TUC begin indefinite strike over salary cut

    NLC, TUC begin indefinite strike over salary cut

    Civil servants in Niger State have been directed to proceed on an indefinite strike by the state chapter of Nigeria Labor Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Congress (TUC) following expiration of two weeks ultimatum given to the state government to pay full salary to workers in the state.
    In a bulletin titled, “Clarion Call” which was signed by the Organized Labour union in the state and made available to The Nation in Minna, all civil servants were directed to sit at home and await further directives.

    The directive of strike action shows that the negotiations between the state government and organized labor failed.

    “The Niger State Council of Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) and Trade Union Union Congress (TUC) hereby directed all Niger State Civil Servant to proceed on an indefinite strike action from Monday 11th July, 2016 (midnight)”.

    According to the State NLC Chairman, Comrade Yahaya Idris Ndako, the Union has decided to embark on indefinite strike due to state government reluctance to reverse its decision of cutting workers’ salaries adding that there will be no form of protest.

    He however added that the Organized Labour will not allow anybody to intimidate them, “This time around no going back the strike is inevitable”.

    However, the State Governor, Alhaji Abubakar Sani Bello has insisted that there is no salary cut of workers in the state adding that some mischief makers have misconstrued government good intention.

  • ‘It’s Oron’s turn to produce Akwa Ibom State governor’

    ‘It’s Oron’s turn to produce Akwa Ibom State governor’

    How is politics in Akwa Ibom?

    Well, It has been the policy of the PDP which controls Akwa Ibom not to heat up the polity. I will rather say we have progressed into 2014. It is obvious that whoever has any stake or interest in what will happen in 2015 must begin to work towards it now. In Akwa Ibom State, I think the greatest show in town is the succession politics- who is going to succeed Chief Godswill Akpabio at the Hilltop mansion come 2015. As a citizen from Oron section of Akwa Ibom State, I consider my own people a major stakeholder in whatever will happen in 2015 and that is what is dominating the politics of Akwa Ibom State at the moment.

    How would you rate Godswill Akpabio in the past seven years?

    Well, Chief Godswill Akpabio has been generally acclaimed as having

    performed exceptionally in infrastructural development. I think anybody who comes into Akwa Ibom agrees with that assessment. But if you actually live in Akwa Ibom, it will be fair to say that Akpabio’s uncommon transformation has transformed Uyo and Ikot Ekpene Senatorial Districts. It has not touched Eket Senatorial district where the resources that generate the money used in running the state come from.There is nothing in the Oron area. No road, no School, nothing in the tenure of this administration. Eket Senatorial District generally Ibeno that has the terminal of Mobil does not even have a road to it, you have to go through Esit Eket to reach Ibeno. Other places in the Senatorial district of Eket attest to this kind of uncommon neglect.

    But that of Oron really stands out given the fact that eighty percent of all derivable revenue from oil that comes to Akwa Ibom comes from Oron. If Akwa Ibom State receives N10 billon from the Federation Account, Oron can lay claim to N8 billon out of that. Yet absolutely, absolutely nothing to show for it.

    What do you think is responsible for this?

    Well, that question should be addressed to the governor himself. We cannot answer for him, why nothing, nothing, I emphasize, is happening in Eket Senatorial District. His numerous deputy governors do not even have road to their homes, not one, which should come through the benefit of occupying that office. So if he cannot do it for people who work so closely with him in Eket Senatorial district, who else would he do for?

    The East-West road is a federal project. So the governor himself has to answer why the people that produce all the resources and had patiently helped to develop other parts of the state have nothing to show for it.

    Would I be correct to say Eket Senatorial District is not happy with Akpabio?

    Well, democracy is to bring dividends and if you do not see dividends it is obvious that you will not be happy. So if the people are not happy, they have a reason. And even the issue of who will succeed him, the governor had been promoting Umana Umana his secretary up to the point that they fell apart. And he is not from Eket. Eket is the largest senatorial district in Akwa Ibom State with 12 local governments and produces the resources we put on the sharing table.

    Those who have been ruling don’t have greater stake to the development of the state than the people who even produce the resources. So, it is criminal to neglect Eket to that level. That is why those who are playing the politics of succession in this state this year must be very careful because any attempt to take the reign of power from what we consider the turn of Eket senatorial district to any other place will bring a catastrophe to the state.

    What do you mean by that?

    Akwa Ibom State is the largest oil producing state in Nigeria. And in Akwa Ibom State, Eket Senatorial district produces the oil. So if Eket senatorial district is not happy can the state be happy? And you cannot tell in what manner the people of Eket Senatorial District will express their grievances.

    The governor has endorsed the zoning of power to Eket senatorial district. But it looks like the people of the Senatorial District are yet to agree on where the governor should come from?

    That kind of precondition or consensus has never been imposed on any section of the state that produced the governor before. So, it cannot stant from Eket Senatorial District. Eket Senatorial District is made up of 12 local governments and Oron, third largest ethnic group in the state has five out of the twelve local governments. And our kindred who also produce oil, Eastern Obolo and Ibeno add up to make it seven. Together, they produce all the 99.9 percent of all the oil in Akwa Ibom. So, Akwa Ibom cannot say they do not know where power should go in 2015 if they have any sense of fairness, any sense of justice and any sense of equity. Moreover, you are aware that our state propably has the largest number of churches per capital in the world. This goes to show that our people are religious. The situation of the succession to the current governor of Akwa Ibom State challenges our sense o religiosity and spiritualism.

    Have Eket people reached out to other areas on producing the governor in 2015?

    Well, our interface with others has gone a long way. Oron people had

    helped other ethnic groups in this state produce governors when they

    had the opportunity. When Esuene was the military governor in south

    eastern state and at a time the state was so broke, he could not pay

    salaries; it was an Oron man, the late Chief Lawrence Etim who brought in money to rescue that situation. When Clement Isong wanted to run for governor in Cross River state, Oron people rallied round to make him a governor. When Chief Donald Etiebet ran for governor in Cross River State, Oron people were critical elements in the struggle to put him in that office.

    We can also say same of Obong Akpan Isemin. We brought Liberal Convention, the three of us- myself,(Effiong Edunam), Otu Ita Toyo and the late Iyanam brought liberal convention from the Constituent Assembly in 1989 to Akwa Ibom State. When General Babangida banned political associations, we converted Liberal Convention which was adjudged the strongest of the political associations in Akwa Ibom to National Republican Convention and that was the platform Chief Akpan Isemin used to become the governor. Chief Iyanam was the Chairman of Akpan Isemin’s caucus, a state co-ordinator of the party and Akpan Isemin emerged as governor. Obong Victor Attah was the next elected governor. Myself, Chief Okon Osung, Chief Jerry Okpo and the late Chief Joe Ating who was the state chairman of the party were critical contributors to the effort to make Obong Victor Attah the governor of Akwa Ibom State.

    In the case of Chief Godswill Akpabio, if Otu Ita Toyo who was the state chairman of PDP at the time had allowed the run-off, which was to take place after the first primary was stalemated, the result would have been different. If he had accepted inducements offered to favour the former governor’s son-in-law, the result would have been different.

    But he made sure that the run-off did not take place and that the ticket was given to Chief Godswill Akpabio. We have paid our dues. And apart from that, we have patiently offered the state the resources with which the development of other areas have been undertaken. And so we are also asking the other ethnic components of the state to be gracious enough to support an Oron candidate to emerge because we are not second- class citizens. We are full citizens of Akwa Ibom State and we have done enough to justify what we are asking for.

    Eket people also have the same argument. So, hod do you reconcile this?

    Eket has how many Local Government and Oron has how many? So if you are going to give priority to anybody you must start from Oron.

    Besides, whether in the military or in the civilian, no Oron man has ever been a governor. Clement Isong from Eket had been the governor of Cross River State standing on the shoulder of an Oron man named Senator Victor Akan. Esuene had been military governor. Remember, Chief Ufot Ekaete was the secretary to the federal government which Obasanjo said was equivalent to three ministers. Eket had been loaded. All through the years, only Eket produced representatives in the NDDC. This is the first time an Oron man has been appointed into the board of NDDC. It never happened before. Until this appointment, no government, no administration in Akwa Ibom had ever admitted that Oron was oil producing. Even when we recovered 76 oil wells from Cross Rivers, they are hanging in the air because they are not ascribed to any place. I know Bakassi was part of

    the old Oron Local Government Area, part of Mbo. So if Mbo is not oil

    producing, where would the oil wells belong to. If you draw a straight

    line from the Akwa Ibom coast down toward Equatorial Guinea, you will see that 80 per cent of all the oil platforms are in Oron waters because Akwa Ibom is essentially an off-shore oil producing state. Oil companies are operating in its own territory, yet not one local government area from Oron was classified by successive administrations for purely political reasons as oil producing. It took the visit of the National Assembly, five committees of the National Assembly, at our own expense, that came to do verifications, using helicopters, boats and things like that before they went and passed a resolution to the effect that Oron must be classified as oil producing local government.

    A fact which was conveyed by the secretary to the federal government to the governor of Akwa Ibom State and the governor has now justified the inclusion of Etim Iyanag (Jnr) in the NDDC board as a function of recognition of Oron. But we say that is not enough because for more

    than 40 years, we have been denied the benefits even when we suffered the disastrous consequences of oil exploitation. Therefore, this government owes us in arrears.

    How ready are the Oron people for the 2015 governorship race?

    Well, Akpabio’s emergence wasn’t a function of the readiness of the Annangs. Attah’s emergence wasn’t on the account of the readiness of the Ibibios. Oron people are going to put forward credible aspirants for the race of the governorship for Akwa Ibom people to choose one.

    It is not an Oron governorship. The person will be an Akwa Ibom governor of Oron extraction.

    Already those who have emerged have given us hope that Akwa Ibom people cannot claim they haven’t found from the array of Oron politicians that have shown interest, somebody they can choose to lead Akwa Ibom State. I can mention some of the names, Asuquo Okpo is a lawyer and an experienced attorney in the oil industry, Ekpenyong Ntekim is the current State Attorney General, nobody can say he is not good enough, Effiong Abia has been in government for many years and he is a member of the cabinet of this administration in charge of rural development. Justics Ebito is a retired judge, there are several others, but all of them are people who have excelled in their various professions, who have been exposed to the challenges of managing their personal lives, their professional lives which of course prepares them adequately for such office.

    Do you have an internal mechanism to screen and prune down the aspirants?

    Well, you remember that in the case of Chief Godswill Akpabio there were over 50 aspirants, yet the system did not collapse. In the case that Oron is making, there are less than 15 from Oron. So, if the state could manage fifty something then, why not now? Though I don’t see a situation that we are going to have such a ridiculous number this time around because after the 2007 exercise I think people would look at themselves more carefully.

    They will not just come out because they have the wherewithal to buy a party form. They will come out because they have done a thorough assessment of their own innate capacity before they put themselves forward. So, the state too has learnt from that, party has learnt from that. And Oron people themselves are conscious of the burden of discharging credible governance to the rest of the state.

    Besides, whoever comes out must be somebody who understands the political process of Akwa Ibom State who has also succeeded in selling himself to the rest of the state, to members of the party in other parts of the state

    How committed is Oron to the project?

    We have reached out to our Ibibio, brothers. We have gone to consult them so they do not say ‘if that is what Oron wanted why didn’t they also tell us.’ We reached out to the Annangs, we went to Eket, we went to Ibeno, we went to Eastern Obolo. To the best of my knowledge, those are the only ethnic groups in the state.

    And it also seems to me that the state generally seems to have accepted the fact that it is the turn of Oron. Because if you look at those who are showing interest in the race, apart from Umana Umana who is from Uyo Senatorial District, no other Uyo man thinks it is fair to come out now. It is only Umana Umana for his own curious reason.

    And nobody has come out from Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. In Eket Senatorial District, even those coming out from all the other two federal constituencies combined are not as many as the number coming out from Oron. And in this business that is always suggestive where the pendulum will swing.

    The governor himself set up a committee with representation from all the 31 local government areas ostensibly to work for somebody who is not from Oron who is his SSG. But he also told them the options, that the first option is an Oron governor with a deputy from Uyo Senatorial District. Second option is an Eket governor with a deputy from Abak area of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. So even the governor in his scheming appreciates that fact, that what is fair is for an Oron person to become the governor and Oron people are ready to hold him to such pronouncements.

    If you see the governor face to face what will you tell him

    I think the governor knows the Oron group has been the most strident, the most fearless. It is not that he is not being told that he is doing the somersaulting regarding who will be his successor. I think it is in his own interest and security that he has been doing what he is doing. But after all the dance, he will still come back to face the reality.