AKPABIO: PORTRAIT OF A CLANNISH LEADER. Ordinarily, the establishment of a Federal Polytechnic in Akwa Ibom should paste our faces with infectious smiles and fill our hearts with gratitude. Unfortunately, this is not happening. Instead, the new tertiary institution gifted to us has ironically generated the kind of virulent controversy that is now releasing dangerously toxic fluids into the ethnic arteries of our state, provoking and precipitating such corrosive and divisive intra and inter-ethnic sentiments that are threatening to tear down the tender bonds of brotherhood and unity that binds us together. And all this negativism is brought about by the insensitive “relocation” of the new Federal Polytechnic to Ukana Ikot Ntuen, the hometown of Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio in Essien Udim local government. But Ukana town in Essien Udim was not the location originally earmarked and recommended by senior government officials from both the Federal Ministry of Education and the National Board for Technical Education that visited Akwa Ibom state last year on the mission to determine the best place in the state for the siting of the institution. According to Senator Ita Enang, who considers the “relocation” of the school to Ukana a “betrayal” by Governor Akpabio, the Federal team which he apparently facilitated to come to the state for the fact-finding inspection visited three locations namely: i) Union Secondary school, Ibiaku; ii) Presbyterian Senior Science College, Ididep, both of which are located in Ibiono Ibom local government; and iii) Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic at Ikot Osurua in Ikot Ekpene local government. Senator Ita Enang says the federal team recommended and the Federal Ministry of Education approved that the proposed new Federal Polytechnic in Akwa Ibom be located at Ididep in Ibiono Ibom local government. Incidentally, Ididep is Senator Ita Enang’s hometown. At exactly what point then did Ukana Ikot Ntuen come into the picture as the approved location for the siting of the new institution? It does appear that Barr. Nyesom Wike, the Minister of Education, is the only one who can furnish us with the answer. This is so because the honorable Minister, who shares with Governor Akpabio a common political adversary in the person of Governor Rotimi Amaechi of Rivers State, is the one that announced to the world when he visited Governor Akpabio in Uyo that Ukana Ikot Ntuen is where the new federal polytechnic is to be. It is instructive that the new school is accommodated in the premises of the Independent High school, one of the enduring legacies of late Chief Ibanga Udo Akpabio, a foremost educationist and paternal great-uncle of Governor Akpabio. It is also worthy to note that our governor, who hails from Essien Udim LGA, deemed it wise to recommend Mr. Chrysanthus Azuka, one of the five persons he appointed as Permanent Secretary from his home local government, to be the first Registrar of the new Polytechnic. While Senator Enang bemoans and cries over this latest act of “betrayal” from his bosom friend, the natives of Ibiono Ibom and, indeed, the Ibibios of the Uyo Senatorial District perceive what they consider the “hijacking” of the federal polytechnic from their area to the governor’s hometown not only as one ingratuitous insult too many, but also as the latest and most audacious attempt to undermine and shortchange their ethnic group. Relatedly, wagging tongues call attention to the last recruitment of secondary school teachers done by the Akpabio administration in which a total of 1400 teachers were employed from the 31 local governments by the Akwa Ibom State government. Verifiable figures show that 155 teachers were employed from Essien Udim LGA alone; and this is more than the 63 from Uyo LGA and 74 from Ibiono Ibom LGA put together. I find it sickening that the 155 recruited teachers from Essien Udim LGA is more than double the total 66 teachers recruited from all the 5 LGAs of my native Oro Nation. The breakdown of the Oro figures is as follows: Mbo, 10; Udung Uko, 9; Oron, 7; Okobo, 20; and Urue Offong/Oruko, 20; totaling 66 from the 5 Oro LGAs. For goodness sake, why has the Akpabio regime marginalized the Oro people so cruelly? How crass can this Oro-phobia and divisive ethnicism get before salvation comes? It is not only in the recruitment of school teachers that Governor Godswill Akpabio has showcased himself as a rabid ethnicist and champion of very myopic clannish interests. As records attest, most political appointments into State Boards and those recommended from Akwa Ibom for appointment into Federal Boards are cliquishly skewed in favour of Essien Udim indigenes. A few instances will buttress our assertion. Simon Etim, the member representing Akwa Ibom and Cross River in the Federal Civil Service Commission hails from Essien Udim. Others from the same Essien Udim are: i) Matthew Ukpong, Commissioner in the Federal Character Commission; ii) Udo Isobari, Accountant General of Akwa Ibom state; iii) Cornel Udoh, Chairman AKHA Service Commission; iv) Aniedi Akpabio, Governor Akpabio’s cousin, is the newly appointed Executive Director of the Federal Housing Authority. In a state with 31 local governments and about six different ethnic groups spread across three senatorial districts, not a few Akwa Ibom indigenes are taken aback by the fact that a person decorated with the national honour of the “Commander of the Niger,” CON, as Governor Godswill Akpabio is, a person who ought to be a sterling exemplar of a de-ethnicised, fair-minded and selfless national patriot, should exhibit such crassly nepotistic and divisive ethnic tendencies as shown in the manner of the political appointments he authored individually or influenced through recommendation. It is this perceived obsessive zeal on the part of Governor Akpabio to unfairly and parochially favour the indigenes of his Essien Udim with choice appointments and concentration of major developmental projects in his native Ukana Ikot Ntuen town that has drawn the ire and aroused the collective indignation of the good people of Akwa Ibom against the opportunistic muscling and dragging of the new Federal Polytechnic from Ididep in Uyo Senatorial District to Ukana Ikot Ntuen in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. Many may be surprised to know that Governor Akpabio’s Annang brethren from especially the “Abak 5,” comprising Ika, Etim Ekpo, Ukanafun, Oruk Anam and Abak, are victims of this cliquishness. They allege marginalization and underdevelopment; and, in relation to the siting of the new Polytechnic, they accuse the Governor of discriminating against them and practicing uncommon clannishness. They find it extremely difficult to reconcile how the Governor who routinely choruses and preaches about fairness, equity and brotherhood, can turn round to encourage and/or see nothing awkward in taking the new Federal Polytechnic to Ukana, which is barely a-10-minute drive from Ikot Osurua where the Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic is situated whereas other far flung Annang communities are left without any such institution. The Annangs catalogue a legion of other uncommon clannishness and unfairness in the distribution of amenities and infrastructure by the government of Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio since 2007. They particularly point out that Chief Godswill Akpabio has over-indulged his Ukana hometown where he has located the State Headquarters of the Mobile Police Unit; the Police College; the modern Prison Yard, all of which were built with Akwa Ibom state funds. There is again the Federal Vocational Institute which somehow managed to also navigate its way to Ukana town. The disturbing reality confronting us calls for sober reflection; and as we reflect, we find that we mentally regress into the immediate past, ushering to the glorious era of Obong Victor Attah. We refreshingly recall how the old statesman thriftily channeled the meager resources he could harness, in those trying days of the “Resource Control” struggle, into establishing those visionary and revolutionary projects that were conceived to bring about the radical industrialization of Akwa Ibom and the empowerment of its citizens. The total sum that accrued to our State during Obong Victor Attah’s 8-year-tenure was about 400 billion naira; and this translates to what Governor Akpabio regime sometimes spends as a year’s budget. With this comparatively meager revenue, Obong Attah conceived and started the Akwa Ibom University of Science and Technology that was envisaged to train and equip Akwa Ibom indigenes with the requisite knowledge and skills to compete and excel in the petroleum sector that drives our national economy and in the maritime industries. This institution was located at the heartland of the oil-producing LGAs, with its boundaries cutting across the 4 LGAs of Onna, Eastern Obolo, Ikot Abasi and Mkpat Enin. Obong Victor Attah, it bears repeating, is from Ibesikpo Asutan LGA. The other four great and visionary projects of the Attah era were the Ibom International Airport located in Okobo and Uruan LGAs; the Ibom Science Park located in Uyo; the Independent Power Plant in Ikot Abasi; and the Ibaka Deep Sea Port project in Mbo LGA that the Governor Akpabio administration has tactfully conspired to asphyxiate. Perhaps, if the Deep Sea Port was not on Oro land but located at Ukana Ikot Ntuen in Essien Udim, it would have been built and fully commissioned since 2010. It cannot be lost on anyone who does a cursory comparison of Obong Victor Attah’s tenure with that of Governor Akpabio in relation to the allocation of important amenities and strategic institutions across the state that the latter displays a worrisome proclivity for divisive clannishness, harmful ethnicism and unwholesome nepotism. No matter how much the officials of government may try, there cannot be any plausible justification for the “relocation” of the new Federal Polytechnic to Ukana, especially in consideration of the fact that some three other federal establishments that came into the state in the last seven years were dragged to the same town in total disregard for other communities and insensitivity to the feelings of Akwa Ibom people. All said and done, Akwa Ibom people do not deserve this. What we have is not a good example of how to discharge government influence and privileges. In my humble opinion, I think Governor Godswill Obot Akpabio has done enough damage to our collective ethnic sensibilities. The time has come to stop further hemorrhaging and rescue our state. Against this background, I think it is important that we serve notice to future administrators that this kind of unbridled parochialism and imperial indifference to the feelings of our people can no longer be accepted nor tolerated. The immediate action we can take to achieve this and thus heal the deep ethnic wounds that the “relocation” of the new Federal Polytechnic to Ukana has created in our psyche is for us to all rise in unison and demand that the Federal Government take the new Polytechnic back to where it was originally intended. We must do this to bring back the brotherhood and unity that existed among all the different ethnic groups in Akwa Ibom long before the advent of the Godswill Obot Akpabio’s administration.
Posted on: Sun, 29 Jun 2014 20:55:11 +0000
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