2015 Gov’ship: The Surprise Akpabio Should Expect!

By Ephraim Ikpe

The battle to take over the Akwa Ibom Power House is still raging on. The gladiators are still running up and down in a struggle to maneuver one another. Intrigues and pranks have been introduced.  Some of them have the colour of cogent and believable promises.  Manipulations and tricks, the power of money and name-dropping is considere part of the tactics. The players of this so called ‘dirty game’ are cast in the mould of what one management expert said of three categories of people found in all establishments on this earth.  He had broken them into those who make things happen; those who watch what is happening and those who don’t even know what is happening.

Umana Umana

From the sitting governor of Akwa Ibom State to some arrow heads like Umana Okon Umana [and his die-heart followers branded as elders et al], who has decided to take his battle to the Court, it is not difficult to fathom those engaged in making things happen.  If mention is to be made of those seeking for the governorship election in Akwa Ibom State, before the last six months, many political jingoists had hurriedly concluded that it was only few of the aspirants seeking to occupy Chief Akpabio’s office in 2015 who were serious. 

Samuel Akpan

Udom Emmanuel

 In one occasion, when asked why such a judgment was made, one Effiong Aniekan from Ika said that from his observation it was Umana Umana, Bassey Albert Akpan, Nsima Ekere, Udom Emmanuel and Samuel Akpan who were interested in becoming governors and that others were jokers and political gamblers. He went further to describe jokers as seekers of unwarranted attention who would later be counted as stakeholders in their respective political Wards or LGAs and political gamblers as those coming into the political turf [always] to make  money either through garnering support via followers which strength and supposed relevance they later take to the negotiation table to get appointment,  contracts or other juicy benefits from the winner of elections.

In the category of persons seeking to be governors, who perhaps are making things happen [in very clandestine ways] are others like Nsima Ekere, Samuel Akpan, and recently discovered but always in the governorship race, Benjamin Okoko and a new man in the governorship race, Prof Richard King, rumoured to be a long time closed friend of President  Goodluck Ebele Jonathan.  In the case of Richard King, it could be that Mr President might be testing the waters.  He could also be trying his luck in very hidden ways, being a man believed to be pulling strings behind the curtains. Or what would one say about the withdrawal of Police orderlies of Speaker Aminu Tambuwal and the embattled governor Rotimi Amaechi in the hands of the former Police Commissioner of Rivers State, Mr Mba?

Effiong Abia, former Commissioner for  Ministry of Local government and Chieftaincy Affairs, is in the mould of persons likely to be making things happen.  Ekpenyong Ntekim, Assam Assam, Peter Esuh, Asuquo Okpo, Okpo Onofiok et al, according to one source, are those watching what is happening.  This reporter have been searching for governorship aspirants who don’t even know what is going on, but yet to find one.  Many things are believed to be going on as build up to the 2015 elections and no aspirant can attest to be unaware of them.

Nsima Ekere

Many politicians, in what this reporter considers beer parlor talk, have had  to hint that  the struggle to produce delegates list for the Primary election of Parties seems a herculean task.  They surmise that once you get over the Primary election, the burden of winning the general election becomes the Party’s affair and all other (ex) aspirants will collapse their structures for the victory of the Party (one person).  That delegates list struggle is the beginning of the battle for PDP aspirants in Akwa Ibom State and is going on now in Abuja.  Stories and endless stories of list A being in  Wadata Plaza today and list B replacing list A tomorrow and so on is the normal refrain these days.

Some five governors [including governor Akpabio] of the PDP stock were said to be visibly worried two weeks ago that their delegates lists were tampered with.  Only God knows how they know about such tampering when the NWC of PDP was yet to make the delegates list of States public.  The five governors were said to have started their own trouble as to why their lists were tinkered.  Analysts argue that such tampering could have been a way to drag more money out of the hands of the aggrieved governors into the hands of ‘those involved’.

Effiong Abia

It was not clear whether AKS delegates list supposedly sent by Mr Paul Ekpo was tampered with considering the camaraderie  relationship of governor Akpabio with Adamu Mua’zu and President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, his position as the most influential and the richest governor in PDP, his chairmanship of the PDP governors’ forum and the most uncommon transformer PDP governor in Nigeria.

While Okpolopm Ikpong Etteh is heard through his campaign organization, Campaign DG(Hon. Ekere Afia) and media aides once in a while, Mike Sebastine and others play the game on facebook and other social media platforms via their aides; a few others continuously replete the streets of the state capital and other urban towns of the state with their good and in other cases, poorly printed posters.  Some have consistently been on newspaper pages in the name of advertorials which most local newspaper proprietors have complained have not been paid for, few weeks to the PDP primaries. The proprietors have started expressing fears that some aspirants for whom they did advertorials might abscond soon after the primaries, but others have sworn to blackmail those who would attempt not to pay for adverts they have published for them.

Opolokpm Etteh

Nsima Ekere and Samuel Akpan have been completely quiet and nobody knows what they are doing. Nsima Ekere has not done his declaration yet.  Almost two weeks now he has been out of the state capital. Umana Umana is alleged to have gone sine die to a giant opposition Party called the APC, which one of its ally [ACN] gave the PDP a running battle during 2011 elections from the polling units to the Courts. Umana is heavily criticized for acting in a hurry.  Some political discussants who spoke to one of our reporters last week said he would have stayed in PDP and waged his ‘fair play’ war instead of running to the APC.  They argue that the APC is an enemy to the President and the PDP and alleged that the APC chieftains were engaged in reckless criticisms of Mr President instead of being constructive and offering alternative ways of arriving at their supposed solutions to Nigeria’s problems.  It was their thinking that no sane sitting government would allow any such opposition Party to take over an oil rich state like Akwa Ibom from it, concluding that Umana Umana has miscalculated his move and perhaps must have been wrongly advised by his cream of Ibibio elders.  Umana is said to have been invited last week to Abuja by the APC chieftains who unconfirmed reports hold would likely bankroll Umana’s  election under the APC  against the PDP candidate in 2015.

When asked via sms by our Reporter whether he was making plans to move to APC Umana Umana was mute on the issue.  Mr Ita Awak, Umana’s campaign DG preferred to be quiet when asked in a text message whether his Principal has declared for APC in his Ward or whether the APC chieftains had invited Umana for talks.

But as at the time of filing this report it was no longer news that the former SSG has sealed plans to declare for 2014 governorship on Thursday this week at Asan Ibibio.

While the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) had two weeks ago attempted to seal the so called zoning deal via a release by the Office of the National Publicity Secretary, Olisah Metuh, that the governorship of Akwa Ibom State for 2015 elections has been zoned to Eket Senatorial District, many aspirants are said to be running up and down in Abuja to ensure that such position is upturned.

Triggered by such wanderings by some governorship aspirants of Akwa Ibom State stock, Metuh had issued a warning that the NWC of PDP should not be toyed with and its decision taken for a joke as such jokers would be dealt with according to the PDP rule book.  Not miffed by such threat, Umana Umana had gone to an Abuja High Court to seek some reliefs, amongst them, that the Ward Congresses held in AKS to produce a list of ad hoc delegates, be nullified and that PDP should be obligated to ignore such list produced by AKS.

Despite all these wrangling and rumblings done almost naked in the market place of politics, some of the aspirants still are neck bent that governor Akpabio will not produce a successor, that the next governor will not come from Eket Senatorial District but from Uyo Senatorial District, some say it will come from Uyo Federal Constituency while a few argue in favour of Oro nation. 

A grapevine source who sought not to be named in this report had hinted that Bejamin Okoko(who stepped down for former governor Victor Attah and was coming back for payback), Richard King and Godwill Okon Richman could swing jokers that would shock even governor Akpabio.  Another school of reasoning has hinted that Dame Patience Jonathan earlier touted to be supporting OBA is now behind Rt. Hon. Opolokpm Ikpong Etteh while a competent source has hinted that Godwill Okon Richman is likely to cross over to APGA.

In all of this, the President of this country in his usual way of doing things has told politicians to play the game without bitterness, and that they should not contest for an  office as if their lives depend on it, and that it should not be a do or die affair.  When the President hosted members of his Declaration Committee in Aso Rock Villa last week he told them that even somebody blocks you from getting an elective office you vie for, do not bother as God could be preparing a higher and better position for you in the future.  It is still being wondered whether anybody in Akwa Ibom State has heard the President as the ding dong battle to capture the Akwa Ibom White House in 2015 continues.