Shield the APC from infection from defectors. The flood of defectors is worrying - Johnson Agbiyan
“You cannot stop sinners from trooping into church or mosque. What you don’t do is hand over the pulpit to them” - Tunde Fashola on PDP defectors
It all began as a harmless address to the Real APC and the mass of the people of Akwa Ibom State by the convener on that occasion, an activist journalist by the name Thomas Thomas.
It was the sixth anniversary of the massacre of the people of Akwa Ibom State assembled under the aegis of the Action Congress of Nigeria on campaigns in IkotEkpene in what is known presently as Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial District. Many were buried in shallow graves, properties in billions of naira destroyed, families displaced and/or sacked.
The Visigoths and Vandals were in town! The atrocity was perpetrated by the PDP government under Godswill Akpabio as governor of Akwa Ibom State, with the connivance of Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, President of Nigeria. The latter looked the other way as the carnage played out.
Godswill Akpabio ordered it. Concurrence came from Umana Okon Umana his Secretary to Government and Nsima Nkere, his deputy Governor. Sunday Ibanga, Emmanuel Enoidem, Nse Ntuen, etc executed it. But the collaborators were far more than that.
They included those in the Executive Council of the State and the leadership cadre of Akwa Ibom North West, none of whom publicly condemned the mayhem. They have not done so till date.
The major victims were the people of Akwa Ibom State struggling even till date to escape the oppression of Godswill Akpabio’s PDP government and in particular the leader of the Action Congress of Nigeria, now APC, Senator John James Akpanudoedehe PhD.
He wassaved from death by his bomb proofed vehicle: The vehicle was sprayed with a barrage of machine gun fire but he survived. He did not leave the scene until the last of the masses was evacuated. I will return to this much later in this rejoinder.
I cannot forget my humble self. I am sure Etok Ekanem would consider me the engine room of the Action Congress of Nigeria then and the APC now if he knows thedepth of duties Iselflessly embraced in that incident and still pursue to help bring to our people good governance for the first time.
He would not be wrong in that assessment. In my position, I know whodid what for Senator Udoedehe in that campaign and can indeed easily say that Etok Ekanem did not provide the ACN with the alternative campaign ground in Nkim Itam when the Party went on campaigns to Itu Local Government Area as he said.
I know what he did but it is not necessary to tell that here. The detail of the events of that era would be recorded and preserved in the not too distant future for posterity.
I owe that as a duty not only to the people of Akwa Ibom State but to the Nigerian people and the flourishing of democracy. Presently, I want to meet Etok Ekanem once again on his intellectual canvass.
He does well to trust his dictionary meaning of ‘history’. I do too. My contribution was however that several scholars have canvassed other prisms of the definition. Intellectual theories or definitions are usually not confined to closets.
I was therefore obliged to cite several scholars who, even though aware of Etok Ekanem’s dictionary meaning, approached their understanding of history from other perspectives.
I dwelt a little expansive on George Santayana’s approach and concluded that the precedents and antecedents of the events of 22nd of March 2011 at Ikot Ekpene would constitute the history of Akwa Ibom State.
Etok Ekanem only needed to ask what those precedents and antecedents were and he would have achieved peace for his soul, at least based on his argument.
The precedents are copiously expressed in perhaps the most authoritative documentary recording of our story as a people, ‘The Story of the Ibibio Union’ by Sir Egbert Udo Udoma, the third and longest President of the Ibibio Union.
When the author sought to launch that book in the University of Cross River State (UNICROSS) now university of Uyo, at the creation of the new State 1987, the students rioted; not against the facts and story narrated in the book but for a completely different reason – the globally acclaimed jurist had held that the new State was not viable. The contents of the book however remain sacred till date.
No indigene of Akwa Ibom State, Cross River State, Equatorial Guinea or indeed any section of Nigeria has controverted that book. Indeed, no member of the then British Empire or Commonwealth and her diplomatic rivals has ever controverted that book.
The book covers that world view. It therefore possesses unimpeachable integrity and does provide the unassailable precedents to the events of the 22nd of March 2011 at Ikot Ekpene.
For instance, it shows that certain sections of the State as well as particular families in those sections already had predisposing factors that would make them, kill, maim, embezzle, loot, lie, be brazen, go diabolical and occulted. Their integrity quotient was zero, dishonesty was their name. Blood of the innocent was on their hands.
From 2006 to 2014 and till date the government of Akwa Ibom State has been precariously in such hands. Etok Ekanem himself was a part of that government. But it is slipping away now. Like anything vanity, it was temporal.
I recommend that book to Etok Ekanem even though he confesses he had since abandoned History for Food Technology.
One legacy that Sir Udoma bequeathed to us as a people was the correct characterization of sections of the State in that book.
It must be noted that the book was written long before Akwa Ibom State was created. Yet Sir Udoma managed to tell us what to expect when power locates any of the sections. So far, the late sage has scored full marks.
Apart from being a must read for every Akwa Ibomite, the book is also particularly recommended for anybody who desires to lead Akwa Ibom State as Governor. Indeed none should seek that high office without a study of that book.
Thomas Thomas scored a bull’s eye there.
Unlike Etok Ekanem however, I am a historian at heart. I love the subject perhaps more than he did. I excelled in it too and pursued it to even the ‘A’ Levels.
I have not abandoned it still, even though I am a lawyer. It helps my worship in the temple of justice tremendously. As I indicated, Etok Ekanem is going to benefit very well from history as he reads on.
What then were the antecedents that led me to agree with the conclusion of Thomas Thomas that March 22nd 2011 would constitute the history of Akwa Ibom State when taken with the precedents just briefly discussed?
Senator John James Akpanudoedehe arrived Uyo from Ikot Ekpene that fateful day of the massacre literally midnight. He had to ensure none of the mass of the people that attended the Ikot Ekpene campaigns was trapped.
He expressed leadership qualities rarely noted for our part of country. He stood courageous, fearless and boldly with the people, defying the flying bullets and directed the rescue operations until the mass of the people was evacuated and then began his homeward trip.
By the time he reached Uyo, government foot soldiers had finished the destruction of public and private property including the campaign office of the then President; the latter done to arouse maximum hatred of the President for the Senator. He would be later framed for all the destruction!
So, early the next morning, the Senator was arrested, flown to Abuja, charged for treason, taken to court, granted bail, rearrested inside court with beatings against legal tradition and tear gassed with the judge who granted the bail; then flown five hours by helicopter to Uyo via Enugu.
He endured all. When eventually arraigned before the former Chief Judge of Akwa Ibom State, the Hon Idongesit Ntem-Isua for arson, riot, and conspiracyand discharged to freedom, the people had seen their champion. What I called ‘a love affair’ between the people of Akwa Ibom State and the Senator in an earlier article probably began there.
Today, not even the act of diverse blackmail andappointment of his political opponents to the government of a Party he helped to found has been able to separate the Senator from the love of the people. Finally, the peoplehave approached the state of total consciousnessrequired to overthrow a political order that has enslaved them for generations!
The enemies of the people in PDP who moved into APC, the party they wanted to kill are about to be rewarded individually for their numerous sins against the people. The momentum of the people for 2019 appears unstoppable.
This is the antecedent which together with the precedent to the events of March 22nd 2011 and the events itself forms the history of the State. All important landmarks in the life of the State revolve around this history.That conclusion rightly left nothing for Nsima Ekere.
This I guess was what made Etok Ekanem begin the bickering. He accepted the importance of the 22nd of March 2011, failed to consider the precedents and antecedents which I pointed out in my first rejoinder to his comments on the address of Thomas Thomas and have addressed here briefly, thenconcluded that myforegoing narrative could not constitute the history of Akwa Ibom State, unless Nsima Ekere, Umana Okon Umana and several other political rivals of the Senator were included.
My instinctive response is that they cannot be included unless theythemselves make history. No doubt this would not satisfy Etok Ekanem. When the women of Israel sang, ‘Saul has killed his thousand and David his ten thousand’, the king was livid.
‘David ten thousand and me they ascribe only a thousand?’ fumed King Saul. Perhaps this is how Etok Ekanem and his clients feel. But unlike King Saul, his clients did not even kill a thousand!
I have noted Ekanem’s media blitz for Nsima Ekere in particular since this matter broke, in spite of the several voices of reason in equal measure against it. I will therefore detail why his clients could not have been included in that history.
In the heat of the failure of NsimaEkere to be considered for the ticket of the PDP for the 2015 election, Etok Ekanem reminds us that he led a group of PDP’s twenty two other aspirants for Governor to see then President Goodluck Jonathan. The people of the State are in no position to know this.
What really did they want to meet him for? How did that affect the prospect of the people? As it turned out Ekanem confessed they stayed in their hotels for forty days and were unable to meet the former President and so had to return home.
Again, saving their ipse dixit, the people are in no position to know this nor can Etok Ekanem volunteer any defense for the twenty two if accused that they went to carouse the first class charms of Abuja hotels and the flesh pots reportedly ubiquitous there. They had enough resources to do that if they wanted by the way.
In any case when they came back, it is not recorded they told the people anything. Indeed, the twenty two drifted aimlessly in between the APC and PDP so long that today one really does not know where to situate them. Some like Nsima Ekere roamed about needlessly until his town’s man Chibuike Amaechi, the Minister of Transport and Aviation and former Director General of the President’s campaign assured him appointment as the managing director of NDDC. Pronto he became a member of the APC. The others are still hanging double minded.
Sometimes they appear to look for federal government appointment all at the same time when not after social pleasures. Just how does one situate gallivanting as part of the history of a people?
Etok Ekanem must know that Nsima Ekere cannot also be a part of the history of Akwa Ibom State for the reasons I relate below. Nsima Ekere is an indigene of Ebuktma village in AndoniIga, Western Andoni.
The Western Andoni people belong to Rivers State by the creation of the defunct Cross River State in 1976, for they were excised as part of the then Opobo Division of the former South Eastern State to Rivers State.
In my early years, I had classmates of Western Andoni origin who were from South Eastern State. They are now plying their trade in Rivers State and doing very well since that State creation exercise was concluded.
Unlike the people of Eastern Andoni who are our people, Nsima Ekere can no longer occupy positions earmarked for Akwa Ibom indigenes.
When his father sought to become the Clan head of Edemaya in IkotAbasi, the Paramount Ruler of Ikot Abasi Local Government Area stood against it on this ground regardless of the fact that Nsima was at the height of his power then as the Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State.
That was on account of ignorance of history which Thomas Thomas addressed. Nsima is therefore an invalid for the history of Akwa Ibom State. He himself knows this fact, for it explains his kinship with Chibuike Amaechi, the former Governor of Rivers State and his marriage to a Delta Igbo where lies his affinity.
Indeed it was Nsima Ekere’s people of Western Andoni who truncated the political career of the national President of the Ibibio Union, Sir Udo Udoma earlier mentioned. In the general elections of those 50s to the Federal Parliament, they collected all the ballot boxes of the national President in their area and cast into the ocean as Nnamdi Azikiwe directed. (See the autobiography of Sir Udo Udoma titled, ‘The Eagle In Flight’).
The national President lost the elections and began to feel he was rejected by his own people and had no reason anymore to lead them. This is why the media work of Etok Ekanem for Nsima Ekere would not count for much now.
And how does Umana Okon Umana fit the bill? The 2015 aspiration of Umana Okon Umana for the ticket of PDP left him in the lurch once Umannah failed to garner any delegate for the primaries of that Party.
A desperate Umannah simply wanted the platform of a viable Party to contest the general election and so left the PDP. He could not even put in a tepid fight for that ticket.
He had no capacity to rev up a new Party to contest the office of Governor either. Even Etok Ekanem would agree that such dutch courage does not a history make.
Our conclusion is that Thomas Thomas correctly identified the constitution of the history of Akwa Ibom State and the bickering of Etok Ekanem was totally unnecessary in that regard.
From the foundations of the world, real leaders are forged from adversity. The circumstance of their emergence is the equivalent of gold forged through a furnace. Leaders of such purity help make the history of their people. Space would not permit me to roll out such models.
The fact is that until the emergence of Senator John James Akpanudoedehe, in circumstances forged in furnace, Akwa Ibom State since creation has only known shoo in leaders. Allthe would- be leader needs to do, is appear from the shadows, having identified who would write in his name and announce.
The shoo in leaders have been so unfair to our people who being used to this even make folk songs celebrating them in local parlance as Ikid (the trickster). Today we know better.
It is saddening, to read that Etok Ekanem felt my first rejoinder to his comment was petty and insulting. In Part two of this article which shall come after his reply to this, he will find out he owes me an apology for that.
Francis Effanga wrote in this reply from Lagos.
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