By Thomas Tomas
I read with humor, Professor Etok Ekanem's reaction to my article, titled "There can never be politics without
History", hence, this comment, which I strongly regard as a bitter pill
very necessary to cure all forms of pretense and hypocrisy.
Thank God that Sir Etok Ekanem is a scholar, a Professor of high
standing, so, he is in a better position to know that in scholarship,
which history forms a part, disagreement can never be taken as insult.
Thus, I will not bother myself and my readers with details of what he
said, but a few will suffice here.
Professor Ekanem's definition of history, which he borrowed to suit his interest, is not good enough, but I can excuse him because as an Agricultural science specialist, one shouldn't expect him to do better, even though he was thought history by an Oron teacher at my alma mata.
But the Prof should note that in History or in Historical scholarship, facts are sacred. What is fact? It is an evidence, oral or written, used in reconstructing history.
Hence, for my Professor friend to list retinue of selfish people as those who played parts in opposition politics in Akwa Ibom State is not only laughable, but exposes how economical he is with the truth.
At what point did Senator John Udoedehe decamp from the PDP to ACN? At what point did Umana Umana and his handful of ex's decamp from PDP, and why? And at what point did Nsima Ekere decamp to the APC, and why? These are pertinent questions that one should ask to know if prof's attempt to equate the three men is genuinely situated.
If Prof Etok Ekanem is fair to Akwa Ibom people and to his God, he would have refrained from coming out with his skewed version of the history of contemporary opposition politics in the State after a month of pondering on my article under reference.
Or, does my Distinguished Teacher want us to believe that he must do this to be trusted by those he seeks to defend?
I have never been a member/supporter of the PDP, although as at 1998 when the Party was formed, I was in my teens.
But I was up to voting age in 2003, and grew stronger and politically conscious in 2007 when I decided to join politics in support of Mr. James Iniama. After the court case which Iniama lost, nobody heard of him. This is a discourse for another day.
Then, Akpabio behaved as if he was a tin-god. He did not act alone, but with a group, which membership included the Professor and all those he seeks to launder and got exonerated from the crimes that they committed in the State in that era. People were killed, kidnapped and some humiliated.
Promises were reneged upon; and those who helped Akpabio ascend to office were witch hunted. Senator Udoedehe was then the Minister of the Federal Republic based on his agreement with Akpabio.
He was blackmailed by Akpabio's lieutenants, and was denied Oku Iboku Papermill which would have benefitted Akwa Ibom people. At last he was relieved of his appointment through the instrumentality of Akpabio and his gang.
Senator Udoedehe would have still hung around in the PDP, afterall he was not sacked from the party. He would have compromised with Akpabio and still receive what due him in the Party as a former Senator and Minister.
But he did not, because as at the time there was nobody to rise up in defence of the people of Akwa Ibom.
Due to the circumstances in the State then, the Senator decided to unseat Akpabio, and was ready to do that within the PDP until the Uwem Ita Etuk-led PDP declared Akpabio the sole candidate of the Party.
Senator Udoedehe would've still hung around in PDP and eat crumbs of disgrace like those my referred Professor seeks to polish, but he did not, but left barely two years after Akpabio became Governor, because PDP could not be his Egypt, and the then Governor could never be his Pharaoh!
When Udoedehe left the PDP in 2009, those who now claim to be more Catholic than the Pope (the character they put up while in PDP) attacked him, and plotted to annihilate him and his supporters.
They issued a statement against anybody that would dare contest against Akpabio in 2011 at a rally in Ikot Ekpene early in 2010 in a PDP function which Professor Etok Ekanem, Umana Umana, Nsima Ekere, Don't Etiebet, Sunny Jackson, Sunny Ibanga, Rita Akpan, etc attended, and some of them spoke alongside Emmanuel Enoidem and Sunny Ibanga, while others, including my Professor friend clapped for and cheered up the speakers in support of their evil plot.
They followed up with series of assassinations and kidnapping, using those "boys" who swarmed with them to the APC as their PAs, etc. They killed Paul Inyang, among others and arrested Senator Udoedehe for it.
We (the opposition) shouted, while the Prof and his clients (then colleagues in Akpabio's exco) clapped their hands, danced and wined in the comfort of their homes, hotel rooms and clubs.
One of them, Mr. Umana Umana, immediately wrote a letter to the IGP, indicted the Senator as the killer of Mr. Paul Inyang.
As if the numerous killings and assassinations (which totaled close to 300) were not enough to intimidate opposition in the State, so in March, 22, 2011 those my Distinguished Professor seeks to launder and reintegrate or reunite them with Akwa Ibom people, ambushed Udoedehe and his ACN campaign train at Ikot Ekpene as they vowed. Some people were killed; some were hospitalized and our campaign vehicles destroyed.
It was followed by massive destruction of properties worth millions of Naira in Uyo by the PDP thugs. It was a well planed mayhem as a few tricycles (which they criminally numbered up to 400) burnt at Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat were without engines.
The Akpabio-PDP government then again hang a treason, murder and arson charges on senator Udoedehe, and he was again arrested, tortured and detained until the eve of April 26, 2011 governorship election.
As at the (2011 electioneering), Prof was still loyal to Akpabio, especially as he was hoping to get the then governor's nod to run for ITU Federal Constituency. Because of his ambition, he was in total support of Akpabio's actions, the same way those he seeks to market did.
No wonder why he warn us not to condemn the actions of Akpabio in totality. But his public condemnation of Akpabio now, though partially, is a decoy to initiate himself and his clients, however belated, into a strange society.
Professor Etok Ekanem, in his skewed historiography, attempts, though ridiculously, to place Senator Udoedehe, Nsima Ekere and Umana Umana on the same ladder in the opposition camp.
This is very unlikely of a professor of his standing! Nsima Ekere sauntered into the APC about 13 months ago; long after the presidential and governorship elections.
He did not join the APC because he did not believe in the party. He was pursuing his personal ambition in the PDP, using a platform that was entirely against the APC (G22).
I can say without fear of contradiction that Prof Etok Ekanem's Nsima Ekere started his so called opposition politics when it was common knowledge that Buhari would be sworn into office, and that his Port Harcourt friend would be appointed Minister.
If Nsima Ekere and his 21colleagues of the so called G22 was handed what they prayed for, I can swear he would not have come to APC.
And again if APC did not win power at the center Nsima would still be in PDP because he is not used to opposition politics as Prof want us to believe.
Therefore his entry into the opposition camp in the State cannot be equate with that of Senator Udoedehe on two grounds:
1. Udoedehe left the PDP when the party was still in power at the centre, and still had all juicy positions and opportunities; while Nsima Ekere left when the PDP had lost everything it had - wealth, power and opportunities.
2. Udoedehe left the PDP to defend Akwa Ibom people who were then leaving in the State like Israel during Babylonian imperium; while Nsima Ekere waited until Udoedehe took the people across the Red Sea.
Umana Umana, another client of my Professor, came into the APC a few days to the governorship primary in 2014. He would have still been in the PDP if Akpabio had favoured him, as he hoped, with the PDP Governorship ticket.
But, alas, Akpabio threw him, not just out of office as the SSG, but stripped him of all the paraphernalia of the PDP until he realised he was naked, hence he wondered into the opposition camp he once chastised, haunted, hunted and hated.
Prof., you are a teacher - which I believe you know the qualities/attributes of a teacher - can you still say that your two clients: Nsima Ekere and Umana Umana are the same with Udoedehe in opposition politics? If you still can say that, which I believe as a typical African politician, you will, then God should announce the funeral of the Truth.
The attempt by our referred professor to also match what happened to the opposition in 2011 with what happened in 2015 is a clear testimony of pretence at its best. In 2011, electoral process was wholly manipulated, while in 2015 the opposing candidate (Umana Umana) was weak (and could not even vote).
If the candidate wasn't weak he would have taken advantage of Buhari's victory two weeks earlier. The blood shed in 2015 was a child's play if compared to 2011 where corpses were brought from different polling units across the State to Udoedehe's house at Afaha Offot.
That Obong Umana Umana took his case to the Tribunal where he got partial victory, got full victory at the Appeal Court, only for his joy to be aborted at the Supreme Court was nemesis - what he sowed! He had not wanted opposition to win in the State, so why should he win?
As solution to the problems in Akwa Ibom State, Prof Etok Ekanem, after severally admitting my postulation that "there can never be politics without history", however calls for the unity of APC in the State.
I agree with him in entirety that " Everything possible should be done to assuage the feelings of persons who have suffered hurt", because, "in all honesty, you cannot truly seek to rescue and redeem Akwa Ibom State from its slave master while at the same time, seeking to exclude available relevant instruments...." Because, without doing so, what my professor calls "Artificial divisive tendencies and unconstitutional demarcations/barriers..." (which to me is natural) will continue to be there.
The Professor should not even dream of the collapse of the real APC agitation within the APC under the aegis of THE REAL APC MOVEMENT, AKWA IBOM STATE, because demarcations, just like unity come naturally and not through constitutionalities.
He should know that revolution, and clear cut demarcation and the like emanate when a section of a group is not happy.
May I conclude by advising my Prof (who happens to be an alumnus of the referred Government Secondary School, Creek Town, Cross River State - the school that moulded me) that rather than attempting to launder, market and defend Obong Nsima Ekere, Obong Umana Umana and the likes of Sunny Ibanga, Sunny Jackson, Don't Etiebet, etc, and making himself an object of ridicule in the face of majority of Akwa Ibom people, by toeing the dark path of falsehood, and seeking to conduct a funeral for the truth; he should rather advise them to come out open and apologize to Akwa Ibom people for deliberately conniving with Akpabio against them and now come out to castigate their leader because of their selfishness.
They should do that because today's politics is tomorrow's history. And every generation has its own historian. I am the historian for this generation of Akwa Ibom people, not you, Prof.!
Professor Ekanem's definition of history, which he borrowed to suit his interest, is not good enough, but I can excuse him because as an Agricultural science specialist, one shouldn't expect him to do better, even though he was thought history by an Oron teacher at my alma mata.
But the Prof should note that in History or in Historical scholarship, facts are sacred. What is fact? It is an evidence, oral or written, used in reconstructing history.
Hence, for my Professor friend to list retinue of selfish people as those who played parts in opposition politics in Akwa Ibom State is not only laughable, but exposes how economical he is with the truth.
At what point did Senator John Udoedehe decamp from the PDP to ACN? At what point did Umana Umana and his handful of ex's decamp from PDP, and why? And at what point did Nsima Ekere decamp to the APC, and why? These are pertinent questions that one should ask to know if prof's attempt to equate the three men is genuinely situated.
If Prof Etok Ekanem is fair to Akwa Ibom people and to his God, he would have refrained from coming out with his skewed version of the history of contemporary opposition politics in the State after a month of pondering on my article under reference.
Or, does my Distinguished Teacher want us to believe that he must do this to be trusted by those he seeks to defend?
I have never been a member/supporter of the PDP, although as at 1998 when the Party was formed, I was in my teens.
But I was up to voting age in 2003, and grew stronger and politically conscious in 2007 when I decided to join politics in support of Mr. James Iniama. After the court case which Iniama lost, nobody heard of him. This is a discourse for another day.
Then, Akpabio behaved as if he was a tin-god. He did not act alone, but with a group, which membership included the Professor and all those he seeks to launder and got exonerated from the crimes that they committed in the State in that era. People were killed, kidnapped and some humiliated.
Promises were reneged upon; and those who helped Akpabio ascend to office were witch hunted. Senator Udoedehe was then the Minister of the Federal Republic based on his agreement with Akpabio.
He was blackmailed by Akpabio's lieutenants, and was denied Oku Iboku Papermill which would have benefitted Akwa Ibom people. At last he was relieved of his appointment through the instrumentality of Akpabio and his gang.
Senator Udoedehe would have still hung around in the PDP, afterall he was not sacked from the party. He would have compromised with Akpabio and still receive what due him in the Party as a former Senator and Minister.
But he did not, because as at the time there was nobody to rise up in defence of the people of Akwa Ibom.
Due to the circumstances in the State then, the Senator decided to unseat Akpabio, and was ready to do that within the PDP until the Uwem Ita Etuk-led PDP declared Akpabio the sole candidate of the Party.
Senator Udoedehe would've still hung around in PDP and eat crumbs of disgrace like those my referred Professor seeks to polish, but he did not, but left barely two years after Akpabio became Governor, because PDP could not be his Egypt, and the then Governor could never be his Pharaoh!
When Udoedehe left the PDP in 2009, those who now claim to be more Catholic than the Pope (the character they put up while in PDP) attacked him, and plotted to annihilate him and his supporters.
They issued a statement against anybody that would dare contest against Akpabio in 2011 at a rally in Ikot Ekpene early in 2010 in a PDP function which Professor Etok Ekanem, Umana Umana, Nsima Ekere, Don't Etiebet, Sunny Jackson, Sunny Ibanga, Rita Akpan, etc attended, and some of them spoke alongside Emmanuel Enoidem and Sunny Ibanga, while others, including my Professor friend clapped for and cheered up the speakers in support of their evil plot.
They followed up with series of assassinations and kidnapping, using those "boys" who swarmed with them to the APC as their PAs, etc. They killed Paul Inyang, among others and arrested Senator Udoedehe for it.
We (the opposition) shouted, while the Prof and his clients (then colleagues in Akpabio's exco) clapped their hands, danced and wined in the comfort of their homes, hotel rooms and clubs.
One of them, Mr. Umana Umana, immediately wrote a letter to the IGP, indicted the Senator as the killer of Mr. Paul Inyang.
As if the numerous killings and assassinations (which totaled close to 300) were not enough to intimidate opposition in the State, so in March, 22, 2011 those my Distinguished Professor seeks to launder and reintegrate or reunite them with Akwa Ibom people, ambushed Udoedehe and his ACN campaign train at Ikot Ekpene as they vowed. Some people were killed; some were hospitalized and our campaign vehicles destroyed.
It was followed by massive destruction of properties worth millions of Naira in Uyo by the PDP thugs. It was a well planed mayhem as a few tricycles (which they criminally numbered up to 400) burnt at Idongesit Nkanga Secretariat were without engines.
The Akpabio-PDP government then again hang a treason, murder and arson charges on senator Udoedehe, and he was again arrested, tortured and detained until the eve of April 26, 2011 governorship election.
As at the (2011 electioneering), Prof was still loyal to Akpabio, especially as he was hoping to get the then governor's nod to run for ITU Federal Constituency. Because of his ambition, he was in total support of Akpabio's actions, the same way those he seeks to market did.
No wonder why he warn us not to condemn the actions of Akpabio in totality. But his public condemnation of Akpabio now, though partially, is a decoy to initiate himself and his clients, however belated, into a strange society.
Professor Etok Ekanem, in his skewed historiography, attempts, though ridiculously, to place Senator Udoedehe, Nsima Ekere and Umana Umana on the same ladder in the opposition camp.
This is very unlikely of a professor of his standing! Nsima Ekere sauntered into the APC about 13 months ago; long after the presidential and governorship elections.
He did not join the APC because he did not believe in the party. He was pursuing his personal ambition in the PDP, using a platform that was entirely against the APC (G22).
I can say without fear of contradiction that Prof Etok Ekanem's Nsima Ekere started his so called opposition politics when it was common knowledge that Buhari would be sworn into office, and that his Port Harcourt friend would be appointed Minister.
If Nsima Ekere and his 21colleagues of the so called G22 was handed what they prayed for, I can swear he would not have come to APC.
And again if APC did not win power at the center Nsima would still be in PDP because he is not used to opposition politics as Prof want us to believe.
Therefore his entry into the opposition camp in the State cannot be equate with that of Senator Udoedehe on two grounds:
1. Udoedehe left the PDP when the party was still in power at the centre, and still had all juicy positions and opportunities; while Nsima Ekere left when the PDP had lost everything it had - wealth, power and opportunities.
2. Udoedehe left the PDP to defend Akwa Ibom people who were then leaving in the State like Israel during Babylonian imperium; while Nsima Ekere waited until Udoedehe took the people across the Red Sea.
Umana Umana, another client of my Professor, came into the APC a few days to the governorship primary in 2014. He would have still been in the PDP if Akpabio had favoured him, as he hoped, with the PDP Governorship ticket.
But, alas, Akpabio threw him, not just out of office as the SSG, but stripped him of all the paraphernalia of the PDP until he realised he was naked, hence he wondered into the opposition camp he once chastised, haunted, hunted and hated.
Prof., you are a teacher - which I believe you know the qualities/attributes of a teacher - can you still say that your two clients: Nsima Ekere and Umana Umana are the same with Udoedehe in opposition politics? If you still can say that, which I believe as a typical African politician, you will, then God should announce the funeral of the Truth.
The attempt by our referred professor to also match what happened to the opposition in 2011 with what happened in 2015 is a clear testimony of pretence at its best. In 2011, electoral process was wholly manipulated, while in 2015 the opposing candidate (Umana Umana) was weak (and could not even vote).
If the candidate wasn't weak he would have taken advantage of Buhari's victory two weeks earlier. The blood shed in 2015 was a child's play if compared to 2011 where corpses were brought from different polling units across the State to Udoedehe's house at Afaha Offot.
That Obong Umana Umana took his case to the Tribunal where he got partial victory, got full victory at the Appeal Court, only for his joy to be aborted at the Supreme Court was nemesis - what he sowed! He had not wanted opposition to win in the State, so why should he win?
As solution to the problems in Akwa Ibom State, Prof Etok Ekanem, after severally admitting my postulation that "there can never be politics without history", however calls for the unity of APC in the State.
I agree with him in entirety that " Everything possible should be done to assuage the feelings of persons who have suffered hurt", because, "in all honesty, you cannot truly seek to rescue and redeem Akwa Ibom State from its slave master while at the same time, seeking to exclude available relevant instruments...." Because, without doing so, what my professor calls "Artificial divisive tendencies and unconstitutional demarcations/barriers..." (which to me is natural) will continue to be there.
The Professor should not even dream of the collapse of the real APC agitation within the APC under the aegis of THE REAL APC MOVEMENT, AKWA IBOM STATE, because demarcations, just like unity come naturally and not through constitutionalities.
He should know that revolution, and clear cut demarcation and the like emanate when a section of a group is not happy.
May I conclude by advising my Prof (who happens to be an alumnus of the referred Government Secondary School, Creek Town, Cross River State - the school that moulded me) that rather than attempting to launder, market and defend Obong Nsima Ekere, Obong Umana Umana and the likes of Sunny Ibanga, Sunny Jackson, Don't Etiebet, etc, and making himself an object of ridicule in the face of majority of Akwa Ibom people, by toeing the dark path of falsehood, and seeking to conduct a funeral for the truth; he should rather advise them to come out open and apologize to Akwa Ibom people for deliberately conniving with Akpabio against them and now come out to castigate their leader because of their selfishness.
They should do that because today's politics is tomorrow's history. And every generation has its own historian. I am the historian for this generation of Akwa Ibom people, not you, Prof.!
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