Akwa Ibom News Online Commentary

As the countdown to the 2011 general elections begins, some politicians are finding it more expedient to send the images of their present leaders to the cleaners, with the hope of swaying political support for themselves or their cohorts. The reasons for this sort of attitude towards politics in Nigeria has always been traced to the belief that political positions are an opportunity to acquire wealth, dominate and intimidate their subjects into submission at any given point. In the process, the view of politics being an opportunity to serve is gradually losing its potency and the situation in Akwa Ibom State is not different. For those of us watching these political gerrymandering from the sidelines, the trend is neither funny nor consoling in any way.

This is because, since the creation of the State out of the former Cross River State in 1987, the last three and a half years have put paid to arguments whether or not Akwa Ibom deserved to be a self-governing status. Unlike many other states of the Federation, Akwa Ibom has stood to be counted among the comity of viable and development-driven states and the credit for all this goes to the Akwa Ibom people, who defied impositions, intimidation and opted for Barrister Godswill Akpabio as their governor in the April 2007 elections. With the present mood in the State thirty eight months after that historic election, it is evident that the people congratulate themselves for having made a good choice. The accolades and wide-spread endorsements for the Governor to repeat the feat with a second tenure have been so deafening, Governor Akpabio would be a saddist to ignore them.

If Godswill Akpabio had earmarked a dual tenure, when as a commissioner, he began eying the governorship of Akwa Ibom State, he has done a good job of justifying his ambition. After three years in Government House, Uyo, people of the State have shaken-off the previously held toga of backwardness and poverty ‘in the midst of plenty’ worn by the State for its stunted or stifled growth. Until the wages of democracy began to showcase under the Akpabio administration, not a few indigenes believed that such feats were ever possible.

Before his ascendancy to the State’s top job, select loyalists of Akwa Ibom Government House were said to be empowered individually, in return for promoting the fortunes and propaganda of their benefactor. Akpabio’s entry into the scene changed all that as empowerment assumed a much wider scope by way of development, spread evenly across the three senatorial districts. Road construction, renovation of classroom blocks, rural electrification, boreholes, completion of an 'international' airport and an international power plant, among others, are all to the credit of the Akpabio administration. The level of development in the State since his assumption of office surpassed those of all previous administrations put together, since the creation of the state in 1987 and has sparked a fire among the citizenry demanding he be given another four year shot on the job.

The performance of the government has baffled many who believe they defy imagination that a man can transform a state that much in such a short time. An official of the Rivers State who declared this at a well-attended public function, went as far as giving kudos to Akpabio stating that “if only 10 governors in Nigeria can do what Akpabio is doing, then Nigeria will be on the path to recovery.” That a non-indigene of Akwa Ibom would be so impressed by Akpabio's performance and declare it so openly before other delegates at a conference, a commentator said reminded of the words of Jesus that ‘a prophet does not command respect amongst his people.’ With so much to show for a successful first tenure, one can only wonder the source of a negligible, self-seeking, self-centered few who would rather wish to give a good dog a bad name so as to justify slaying it. What happened to the age-long adage that honour should be given where it is due? If Akpabio was as self-seeking as some of the faceless opponents, all he needed was borrow a leaf from a former governor of neighboring Cross River State, who did far less in his first tenure and drummed to his people that “one good term deserves another.” And he got it. How much less one with a glaring track record of performance that has caused many an indigene of Akwa Ibom and visitors alike, wondering if they were in the same state they used to know?

Quoting some visiting indigenes of the state from their bases abroad, “We were privileged to physically view and assess completed and ongoing infrastructural developments. The sheer enormity of the various projects in the three senatorial districts and the obvious dedication of the SSG, the Deputy Governor, and some Commissioners and government officials we interacted with illustrated to us that things were being turned around or were positioned to be turned around. I believe a simple and sane analysis based on what has been completed, what is in progress, and what is projected in available government programs vis-a-vis the oft-cited huge revenue allocation from Abuja, will bear this administration out,” they said.

At an elaborate reception ceremony held at the Castle Green Community Leisure Centre, Daghenam, London, indigenes of Akwa Ibom State in the United Kingdom and Ireland, endorsed the governor for a second term based on what they described as the uncommon transformation of the state for provision of vital infrastructure and human capital development in the state in the last three years. He also recently got the endorsement of Akwa Ibom indigenes in the United States of America at a unique ceremony in New York and on Saturday, August 07, 2010, the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, honoured the Akwa Ibom State Governor Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio with a Doctorate Degree in Law by the authorities of the Institution as part of the University’s 39th Convocation. In November 2009, Dr. Godswill Akpabio had also received a Doctorate Degree in Public Administration (honoraris causa) at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, . Similarly, The University of Uyo crowned him with another Doctoral Degree in Law [Honoraris Causa], as did the University of Calabar, in recognition and enormous pride brought to them by one of their products, reeled a similar degree on him at a colourful ceremony in Calabar. These, many think have been most deserving because of his peculiar attention to education.

Physical infrastructural development of the state aside, education, as an investment in the future of youths, has taken the cake in terms of gaining the attention of Governor Akpabio as he has bequeathed a free and compulsory Education policy to people of the State. Under the policy, Akwa Ibom children of school age from primary to senior secondary level go to school free. What makes the Akpabio brand of free education unique is the payment of a subvention of N100 per primary school pupil and N300 per secondary school student to cater for logistics and expenses for the administration of each child in addition to the free tuition to enable school heads desist from imposing any levies on the children.

Also duly taken care of are the provision of conducive learning environment in schools for the Akwa Ibom children through massive rehabilitation and reconstruction of school blocks, provision of science and laboratory equipment, construction of hostels and supply of desks. The Governor has also embarked on the construction of an e-library in the State to serve as a reference centre for researchers in the State in particular and the country in general.

With such an enviable track record that has endeared Akpabio to most Akwa Ibom indigenes, it is little wonder that some politicians are beginning to adopt various under-handed methods to smear the governor with the hope of thwarting his second term bid. But given the ripples being caused in political circles as a result of the mind-boggling achievements of Governor Akpabio, even the opposition has come to grips with the fact that only a Tsunami-type action would suffice to unseat the man who has come to be known as the Peoples’ Governor. Only recently, the State branch of the Coalition of Nigerian Political Parties, CNPP, decried its inability to agree on a consensus candidate to challenge Akpabio at the 2011 polls. Chiefest of their worries is the fact that most opposition parties in the state have lost focus and are, apparently too "weak, compromised and disenchanted" to make any impact if at all they are able to participate in the 2011 elections in the state.

If there is one area in which Governor Godswill Akpabio has made tremendous, albeit invisible impact, it is in the area of galvanizing the unity of the State. Today, hardly anyone hears of discriminations or marginalization claims by any of the ethnic groups as all are duly figured into the scheme of things. Development projects, political appointments and other benefits are enjoyed by Akwa Ibom indigenes, without bias for their origins or political affiliations. These are gains the self-seeking politicians would be eroding with their baseless smear campaigns, as they would be pitting brother against brother in the bid to get what they want, even as they may want to shy away from the reality of creating an impossible state to govern should such ethnic sentiments take root, inadvertently. While Governor Akpabio’s numerous achievements will speak for him at the polls, he has not foreclosed any possibility of other fair-minded indigenes willing to continue from where he stops, as long as the state is the ultimate beneficiary. This is why the electorate must try to see through self-seeking politicians and sustain the momentum of progress that has become the order of the day in our dear Akwa Ibom State. This cannot be compromised on the altar of selfish, personal interests or gains. Akwa Ibom State deserves better.

Thank God they know what they want.

SIDIBE, A PUBLIC AFFAIRS ANALYST WRITES FROM CALABAR

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