By Solomon Johnny
Dear Chris Essien,
I have read your comments on the purported zoning of the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress, APC to Eket Senatorial District by Obong Umana Okon Umana at his house sometime in May, 2017. As a mark of respect, I will like to respond to the issues you raised over my disagreement with Obong Umana's unilateral decision to import into the party, an idea which is unknown in letters and spirit to the APC. This response is so that members of the public are not misled on this vexatious matter.
I regret that I'm filing this out of time but quite unlike the regular court where you hold sway as an attorney, it is permitted in this court of public opinion to file reaction at the convenience of the author.
Add to the discuss, I shall also bare my views on recent debates including but not limited to the claim that Dr Amadu Attai still chairs APC, Akwa Ibom State chapter, Real APC and other dissents in the party being moles working for the PDP and the clamor of an Oro governor in 2019, the feasibility of such agitation being my concern and focus.
In case anyone cannot read this long piece, the sum total of my submission is that corruption, greed, selfishness and lack of morality in the current party politics played by Obong Umana and Ekere groups has rendered APC impotent and given her a big wound in both legs and buttocks such that the party can neither stand for sit well to win any poll in the state. Like always, only truth, genuine reconciliation and due consideration can heal it and make the party strong again.
1.The Missing Point.
Let me start with the missing point I raised which you either did not take notice of or ignored addressing it.
I had accused you and many former "this and that" under the PDP currently taking refuge in the APC as being the real problem of Nigeria, Akwa Ibom State and the deserted former ruling party (PDP), because PDP attained notoriety when most of you were serving in various capacities and failed to impact positively on the masses thus bringing Nigeria and Akwa Ibom State down on its knees.
Many of you as Council chairmen and councilors, failed to draw government nearer to the people by refusing to develop infrastructure at the grassroots. Most of you were only seen at the council whenever there is allocation and once it is shared and looted, the next visit to the council will be when another allocation drops.
As serving officers of government, you did very little and next to nothing to salvage the poor, the unemployed and earned for your party then, the hatred of the people. That is why after a hard sixteen years of rule by the PDP, we still lack electricity, unemployment still surges up and we are still categorised as Third World country. Yes, Rome was not built in a day, but at the pace of development, looting and impunity your party exhibited, Rome would never have been built in dispensations to come.
I expect you Sir, to convince me that, as a former council chairman, former National Legal adviser to the PDP and others like your self taking refuge as Saints in the APC and condemning your former party as being corrupt, undemocratic and insensitive, are not the cause of the collapse of Nigeria's economy and the once famous PDP having not impress the masses while you held sway.
As much as I agree with you that there is right to associate with the APC, I hold that many of you distorting facts and history to suit your whims and caprices, plotting evil graphs on how to expel founding members of the party, are mere liabilities for our great party and not the "indispensable assets" you claim you are. I don't mean to disrespect you very dear senior Attorney, but the truth is that picture of a murderer, arsonists and criminal kingpin readily comes to mind each time it is said that a man like Chief Sonny Ibanga is in APC today angling to replace Dr Amadu Attai as State Chairman after he successfully organized the pogrom of same party members in 2011 at lkot Ekpene.
APC has been misled to dump its mainstream supporter who were the "ordinary people" on the streets of Akwa Ibom State earnestly seeking and doing everything within the ambit f the law to bring change simply because so many bad eggs, notorious as they were known, have jumped into the party, invested their looted wealth on the Amadu Attai State exco and they became blind to the consequences of allowing the party to become a dumping ground for those who run our state aground.
No doubts, our party was not going to be a congregation of Saints.
I don't even think we have one anywhere. But the way we celebrate those who helped principally to enslave the state, makes us look like a party without discipline, ideology, taste and direction. No better result could be anticipated from a failed football team (PDP) that empties herself to another team(APC), simply because and perhaps, change its name and jersey ahead of a new match.
I insist that you and the PDP decampees angling as progressive leaders in APC when you are not, are the mistake the APC has made.
Today, PDP that we criticized for her failings and the people hated, seems purged and clean because many of those believed to have plotted the assassination and kidnapping of our best brains, corrupted and looted our Commonwealth, diverted and converted and promoted mediocrity above excellence, are the main drivers of our party while those who founded it on principle of popular democracy resisted the undemocratic killing regime of the Godswill Akpabio era are blackmailed and humiliated out.
APC may soon wake up to see that out of unjustified hatred, exploitation, arrogance, complacency of it PDP refugees and grandstanding, that she has courted the hatred of the masses that these men once victimised, abused, exploited and used only as collateral to get to power and feed their ego. To be fair to you, you may not be one of those liabilities but sincerely speaking, many of you who held many offices in the last 16 years of the locust PDP, but now pontificating in the APC and telling me what to do and what not to do, deserve to be pelted with stones in view of how your actions and inactions brought Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria this low. That is the missing point in your commentary which I shall expect you to address if you care to.
2. That APC recognizes Zoning and Solomon Johnny and Thomas Thomas Contested because of Zoning.
I have denied the above point in its entirety and had challenged you to prove that I contested for the counselorship position of Asutan Ekpe ward 5 because there was zoning.
In your rejoinder, you have failed to present any concrete evidence to the contrary. You only contradicted yourself by stating that the office was zoned to Nung Attah and Nung Akong group of Villages even as you failed to state who did the zoning, where, when and how.
It is a fact that one office cannot be zoned to two places as you claimed otherwise, the sole essence of zoning which is giving one place advantage over another would have been negated.
For the umpteenth time, I contested because I felt I was qualified for the office and that I shall use same to better the lot of the ward. You commended me for so doing and gave me your full support which I still appreciate, love you for it and respect. Never at any point was zoning a factor in my aspiration.
3. To convince me that APC endorses Zoning you had asked though rhetorically "How come APC did not bring both the President and it's Vice from the same geo political zone". I would have asked how the party, working with the Presidential candidate who got nominated from the array of other Presidential aspirants from other geo political zones, to nominate a running mate amounted to zoning. But no need belaboring the point because in the preceding line, you clearly admitted this was not zoning actually. You said " Yes, I entirely agree with you that that was not zoning".
My worry stems from your attempt to use the leadership tussle in the National Assembly after the 2015 poll to say APC recognizes zoning.
Sir, recall that APC had her choice of leadership which the house rejected and went ahead to elect among themselves who they deemed best suited for those offices at both chambers. However, neither the party not NASS at any point in time said they acted in consonance with zoning because the truth remains that APC does not recognize zoning because of the discrimination it brings.
It will be very undemocratic for anyone to smuggle zoning into the APC because what is not expressly stated in the constitution of the party, is expressly excluded and every party member must rise up to defend the integrity of the party. Whether Nigerians, as you claimed, have accepted zoning or not, it is alien to our great party and until the constitution of the party is repealed to incorporate it if need be, zoning, a a PDP ideology remains an anathema in APC.
It can never be an ideal system for now as you claimed. Rather, liberal democracy which is both recognized by APC and constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is the idea in our leadership recruitment processes. You may be allowed to come into the APC. However, you shall not be allowed to corrupt the party with PDP mentalities that led her to ruin. If you succeed in the zoning nonsense, you may move on to promote a consensus candidate as PDP did. We don't need you to ruin our party for us.
4. That Obong Umana Okon Umana lost because of Zoning in 2015.
I am not surprised that you took this position which can be interpreted against us by the opposition as not being strategic in our actions and connected with the people. You would not have reached this conclusion if you had joined the party, at least before the nomination to follow on the events that led to his emergence as governorship candidate of the party.
Needless rehearsing how delegates from ward, chapter and state exco met and considered factors before voting candidates from the array of aspirants available, but one point worth repeating is the fact that whatever decision the delegates who represent the party members take, it is valid and represents the sum total of the aspiration of party members. They can't be wrong when acting within the constitutional framework and their role of engagement.
Obong Umana Okon Umana did not loose in 2015 because of zoning, rather, he lost because the evil that men do, lives after them. He lost because Karma was at work and the golden rule teaches us to do unto others what we wish them to do unto us. The Bible still teaches us that evil shall hunt the violent man. Obong Umana Okon Umana, former commissioner of Finance under Obong Victor Attah and later SSG to Chief Godswill Akpabio, lost the 2015 governorship election because he, with then Governor Akpabio, created and benefited from insecurity, murder, fraud and rape of Akwa Ibom people while their fraternity lasted.
He, with Akpabio, scuttled many dreams and robbed many of their political rights. When he purportedly severed his alliance with Akpabio and claimed he wanted to salvage the ruins he sanctimoniously exonerated himself from, he refused to even apologise for being the engine room of the marauding mafia regime. The public are not fools and even if they were, God never sleeps over any act of injustice so brazenly committed against a people.
Obong Umana also refused to make any concrete commitment to review the activities of the government because he knew doing so shall amount to probing himself. All the electorate wanted, was that any government that replaces Akpabio, of necessity, should review most actions and anti people policies of the government, review the slanted civil service appointment and unjustified retrenchment of many senior civil servants who were subject of Akpabio's vendetta. The person needed to probe most failed mega projects which were nothing but conduit pipes to drain the state and restore power from the cabal back to the people. These were impossible tasks Obong Umana Okon Umana could not undertake to do.
In all his campaigns, it became a dull show of mistaken priorities by the APC who, for the love of money, paraded dregs of Akpabio's PDP nemesis as APC candidate for Houses of Assembly and Representatives at both chambers of the National Assembly. 80% of the candidates were accomplices with Akpabio and their hands soaked directly or indirectly with the blood of those assassinated, kidnapped or framed up to sustain the government.
So when Akpabio rigged, he rigged and succeeded with the system supporting him up to the Supreme Court to the extent that evidence, articulately marshalled in our favor by the best legal brains in the country, amounted to nothing at the end of the day. You believe it was zoning that caused the defeat. I hold it was nemesis that hunted Obong Umana Okon Umana and his crew that we mistakenly supported.
It may not make sense to you that Akwa Ibom State is a Christian State in which the golden rule is supposed to be very effective in our engagement with one another. You may call it politics to rob, outsmart the vulnerable of his hard earned victory. But there is a way it bounces back on you.
In 2011, ACN won the governorship poll in 24 local Government Areas of Akwa Ibom State. Obong Umana Okon Umana, Bar Emmanuel Enoidem and others spent three days at Independent National Electoral Commission, Uyo with the active conspiracy and connivance of Mrs Maria Owi to change the results in favor of PDP all in a bid so that Chief Godswill Akpabio, from Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District, completes a second term and hand over to Obong Umana of Uyo Senatorial District. That was the thought of Man which Akpabio refused to honor at the later end and went for another lbibio man from Eket Senatorial District.
But Obong Umana rebelled however forgetting that his hands are not clean and that they that go to equity must do so with clean hands. In going to the Supreme Court, he forgot how he aided and abetted Akpabio to kill people dreams as councilors, Council chairmen, lawmakers...
I submit that Obong Umana Okon Umana did not loose the 2015 gubernatorial election because of zoning. I submit that he was caught up by nemesis of the atrocious mafian regime he served as the key schemer and conspirator. I submit that the unhealthy rivalry to suppress those who founded APC in Akwa Ibom State is yet, another injustice that if allowed to stand, shall rob APC the face of God and the votes of men that are needed to win polls. That suppression and exploitative approach of the current leadership of APC in Akwa Ibom State has stained their hands and equity shall never listened to them.
6. On Obong Nsima Ekere? Yes, I agree with you that he is a great man. I respect him.
But I would have respected him the more if he had shown up, like Moses to the Israelites in Egypt, left his comfort zone in 2011 when Akwa Ibom State in general and Ibibio in particular, needed leadership and a man to speak for them. He would have been my hero if he had seen afar off like John Udoedehe did, that PDP he Co founded and funded, was heading to the rock. Leadership must be visionary and calculative too so that the led are not led to the dingy.
It is the shortsightedness of "leaders and great men" like Obong Nsima Ekere that made the South South "beggars" in APC which is today's ruling party in Nigeria. When Nigeria was moving from the PDP, Akwa Ibom leaders who always like ready-made stuffs were busy eating crumbs for dinner and by morning, PDP which they mistook to have been formed by Jesus Christ and thus cannot collapse, was in debris and tartars.
For me, it is not about where a man stands in moments of comfort, but where he stands, what he says and does when the going is tough and rough. It is about principle and standing for something and not falling for everything that glitters as if it is gold.
I took the gauntlet for President Muhammad Buhari in 2015 because he has been consistent and different from the lot available for choice. We had a problem at hand and he was the best option available in solving the problem. He was not part of the problem and long before then, he had demonstrated genuine effort at solving the problem.
It is instructive for APC to get rid of her malice and jaundice and be fair to all it party members.
I sympathize with Obong Nsima Ekere. The crowd he seems to enjoy is not because he is a super star that we need to win Gov Udom Emmanuel in 2019. The crowd is because he occupies an office that gives him money to spend and take that office and money from him, the men are gone. That is the paradox of our poverty and deprivation. Our political class are a little like the vultures. Once there is food, there is a man to run with.
Poor Akwa Ibom State.
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