OPEN LETTER TO THE BENUE APC LEADER, DR. GEORGE AKUME (1) By - TopicsExpress



          

OPEN LETTER TO THE BENUE APC LEADER, DR. GEORGE AKUME (1) By Simon Imobo-Tswam My Dear Leader, Good evening, sir. Since the New Year spirit is still in the air and 2015 is still very young, permit me, sir, to heartily extend to you my compliments of the season: Happy New Year. I have many frank things to say to you, sir, but since this is an Open Letter, I am afraid that it is going to be as open as an Open Letter can be. Believe me, my Leader, this is no easy letter for me to write. I have thought long about this, and even as I write it now, I am trying very hard to reconcile my dilemma: How do you write your Dear Leader such an Open Letter, denominated, as it were, by hard facts, without putting him in a foul mood? And how do you not write it, when your conscience accuses you, untiringly, of active complicity in helping to sustain a lie, and you are helpless in your efforts to silence it? And so I write it, believing that it will make you sober as you cannot keep leading us like this. Benue is bigger than the sum total of our ambitions. And if we must reclaim the promise of our destiny, we need to march into the future more purposefully than this wobbly stagger towards 2015! Straight away, let me put it on record that no man is perfect; all of us have our faults. So this letter is not personal. It is rather about your politics or, specifically, the unorthodox thrust of your politics. If my verbs appear too vigorous or my adjectives too qualifying, it is not impudence; it is rather because English is, as you know, my secondary language, and not having a good grasp of it (yet), I cannot really express myself very well. And what I mean to say sometimes comes out awkwardly. You must forgive me. I have a reason for writing this letter. And this is it: I feel duped. Yes, sir, I feel duped! When Dr. Terhemba Shija brought me to you about 15 years ago to write your biography, I genuinely believed you were cut out to be the political Leader of the Tiv Nation after the yawning vacuum created by the untimely death of Dr. J.S. Tarka. The signs were all there: the generosity, the humaneness, the openness, the community spirit, and a resurgent Tiv consciousness. From a surface appreciation of your person, you had no bourgeois sensibilities, no class consciousness and no evident gubernatorial arrogance. No other other Tiv son in the public space then exhibited this type of democratic camaraderie: not Dr. Iyorchia Ayu, not Engr. Barnabas Gemade, and certainly not the likes of Prof. Iyorwuese Hagher, Chief Jacob Tilley-Gyado, Gen. Samuel Victor Malu or Chief Abu King Shuluwa. But alas, how deceptive is appearance! This was only an image, a dummy, and I bought this image, this dummy. You obviously belong to the breed of politicians who believe that politics is about perception, and that image is everything. The truth is that you are a regular politician, sir, with all the warts and all: a duplicitous face that is masked by a carefully cultivated image; a patronising indifference to everything that is democratic; as well as an over-reaching ambition that knows no boundaries, has no moral restraints and respects no protocols - all these warts camouflaged in democratic pretense and perfumed with, what I will call, guided generosity or kinsman philanthropy. This is 15 years, plus or minus, and to imagine that I have been duped for so long and have promoted an image for as long is not funny. At all. In fact, let the truth be told, and it is hereby told: I consider knowing you (and in consequence, writing a book on you, attending meetings in your house supposedly aimed at enriching our democracy-cum-expanding its frontiers as well as handling your correspondence) a big regret, even a scandal. And if Providence is kind to me, and spares me another such disappointing experience, my association with you will remain the biggest scandal of my life. I just hope its reverberating echoes will not haunt me to the end of my tether here on earth! Now, what has triggered all these? My Dear Leader, it is this democratic abomination, this political scandal, this electoral albatross, that you have, arrogantly, but needlessly, hoisted on Benue people, especially those of the APC Family, in the person of Chief (Dr. Samuel Ioraer Ortom, an otherwise likeable person - at least, at a personal level. If you really wanted Ortom to fly the APC Governorship flag in Benue state (and proceed to win the election-proper - which many people doubt), you would have persuaded him, nine months ago when you reportedly started this dark move, to cross-over from the PDP into the APC in time so as to put a stamp of credibility on his quest and a veneer of normality on it. If he thus came into the party in time, he would vie for the ticket like any other aspirant on the APC platform. And given the billions of Naira he is rumoured to have come with, it is very possible that the Inyam kyume-i-Nzorov could have taken the ticket, as we say, tugh tugh. I say this because it was a Delegates Election, and it was, therefore, a buyers market. However, sir, you waited until he vied for the governorship ticket in the PDP Primaries and failed, and then, you smuggled him into the APC and awarded him the governorship ticket in a most arrogant manner that suggests that you operate outside the parameters of due process, morality and community norms. In this Ortom debacle, you seem to have decalared: I am the APC in Benue State - in the same way that a demented European potentate declared in the days before yesterday: I am the State. But that was another time, another civilisation and another historical epoch. In this time, in this civilisation and in this historical epoch in which we now live, one man cannot be the community - no matter his socio-political stature, no matter his bombastic title, and no matter the fanciful, egotistical constructions in his subconscious. This is why democracy has no kings or emperors. But now, your dual posture is confusing people. When you raise your hands in the Democracy Square, your left hand displays the democratic sign while your right hand is a mailed fist. In some circles now, you are being referred to as King George or the Emperor! I do not know how that sounds to others, but to me, it sounds like a democratic aberration. My Dear Leader, with time I may get to write Dr. Ortom an Open Letter too, but while in his neighbourhood, permit me to say one or two things about him. He is a rugged and decidedly over-ambitious politician for whom the end will always justify the means. And added to this is, what I suspect to be, a subconscious grudge against society for conspiring to send him out of school and straight to the garage in the days long gone by! Even his honorific chieftaincy title, the Inyam-Ikyume-i-Nzorov, may be a pointer to this. But in all fairness, sir, we must concede that Ortom is a product of his history. And is that not how all of us are? So give it to him: like him or hate him, Dr. Ortom has grit. And on top of this, he knows the system, and he is playing it. And yes, he has no compunction. But then, we are talking about Ortom himself. This is a man who apprenticed in the motor -park very early in life; this is a man who sharpened his survivals kills as a truck-driver; this is someone who honed his do-or-die instincts in the PDP, a party not exactly renowned for procedure or orthodoxy; and this is a man whose honorific chieftaincy title - Inyam-Ikyume - may as well mean: Beast of Prey. If such a person cares about compunction or such delicate things as protocol or morality, he would be a miracle indeed! As it were, Ortom has shown clearly that he may have left the motor - park a long time ago, but the motor park has not left him! But back to the main thread of my letter, sir. In giving Dr. Ortom the Benue APC governorship ticket, both you and the APC have lost the moral high ground to lecture the PDP on due process, the rule of law or democratic tenets. You and the party have only proved that impunity is not a PDP thing, but a political class thing; what is more, the APC has announced to the whole world that the PDP does not hold the copyright on impunity and its inevitable fallouts like rigging, imposition and the manipulation of the electoral process; or that if the PDP indeed holds the copyright, it (the APC) has the patent! It is a tug-of-war of impunity. In this case, the APC should come down from its phoney olympian heights, and cease its ceaseless criticism of the PDP: for the Ortom imposition has even left the Fixers in PDP gasping with incredulity! And even you, my Dear Leader, should apologise to Rt. Hon. Gabriel Torwua Suswam. You fought Gov. Suswam, but it was with enlightened self interest. In other words, it was a half-hearted fight. But for fighting him at all, for making a symbolic show of a fight at all, the governor deserves an apology from you and the State APC. Thank God that the Permanent Chairman of the ACN/APC in Benue state is still Comrade ABBA Yard. It is not enough that you went for Suswams birthday, and declared that you are no longer fighting him; you must apologise to him for embarrassing and distracting him with a needless, even if symbolic, suit when all along you were (and have been) admiring his ruthless, Machiavelian tactics. It reminds me of what another Strong Man from another time and clime, Josef Stalin, used to say: Call your enemies what you are! As I prepare to end this Open Letter, let me say, with predictive confidence, that the Ortom candidature will not stand. If it stands, it cannot sell. And if it sells, it will sell for nothing. Let me explain, sir. The G.4 (Prof. Steve Ugbah, Sen. J.K.N. Waku, Hon. Emmanuel Jim and Chief Mike Iordye) are in court. Of course, many people say there is nothing really judicial or systemic about our judicial system (thanks to the corrosive Nigerian Factor), but some of us still have faith in it, and so there is a high likelihood that this pyramid of impunity will be legally dismantled. But if it stands, Suswam and his PDP machine will overwhelm Ortom, and proceed to dismantle your empire. Remember: Ortom may have left the PDP, but the machine is still intact. And where he had the incumbency cover to do as he pleased, GHM will now bring the full weight of the incumbency factor to bear on him. And on you. And no one will sympathise with you again. This is more so as there is no Prof. Ugbah to help power your doomed and ramshackled re-election project. But again, even if Ortom goes ahead to win the Guber-election with the Gumanisation of votes, Suswam and his entourage will still give him the Ugbah - treatment: he will move from Tribunal to Tribunal; and from thence to the Appeal Court to the Supreme Court and back to the Tribunals...until, finally, the the whole thing will be thrown into the cascading River Benue. And when that happens, sir, I have a strong suspicion that rather than fret, you will pop champagne with your inner circle of aides/friends/associates. You see, I do not really believe you want a Benue State Governor on your partys platform, whether ACN or APC! Since Gov. Suswam refused the yoke of your leadership, you have not really wanted another person who will challenge your leadership or over-shadow you as the Leader or the APC Leader in Benue State. An Executive Governor in your party, be it ACN or APC, will become the Party Leader in Benue State. You will no longer be the Leader, and rather than people saying: Akume has called for a meeting, or There is a meeting at Annune, it would then be: The governor is meeting with party party elders tomorrow. And your fear is that, you too would have to attend such meetings, and be at the receiving end of executives orders! I may be wrong, sir, but if I am right, permit me to say this: Your fears are unfounded. Your governor does not necessarily have to over-shadow you, nor do you have to be a serving senator to remain a leader or the Leader. In Lagos state, Asiwaju Ahmed Bola Tinubu, is not a Serving Senator, but he is not only the State Leader of the party, he is also our National Leader. And till the Strong Man of Kwara politics, Dr. Olusola Saraki, died (and that is recent), he remained the indisputable Party Leader. So, sir, what you are doing may be deliberate i.e. if I am right. And I could be wrong. But if I am right, your stance might be strategically aimed at ensuring that the APC flops in next months governorship election, and so does not go near GHM, Come May 29, 2015. There is a name for this: It is called ANTI PARTY ACTIVITIES! But it is not in my place to make such a weighty allegation, so I am not going there at all. But back to the present. Whatever happens tomorrow, the APC has not only lost its moral high ground, it has also lost its soul, particularly in Benue state. And what is worse is that the party has additionally acquired a limp. So, at best, the party goes into the 2015 governorship race as the Aggrievaed Peoples Party (APC). Let me quickly add here, before you get angry with me, that I did not coin this: the credit for this mischievous coinage reportedly goes to Dr. Ortom just before barging into the APC like a bull in a China shop. And at worst, the party will be seen as the New-PDP. And if the PDP now has TWO CANDIDATES, we will have to do a re-assessment so as to choose which PDP to follow: the Original PDP or this New PDP. Put succinctly, we may be faced with choosing between Prince Tarzoor and Dr. Ortom. For instance, Tarzoor emerged as the PDP candidate after beating over 20 aspirants; Ortom jumped from being a PDP chieftain to being the APC Consensus Candidate: he was never an aspirant at any point. He may be celebrating this as a miracle, but many of us are also Christians. We can, therefore, tell a miracle from its travesty; and we can also confidently say that God Almighty, as the God of order, is different from the bull-dozing god of the motor - park! Tarzoor went to regular schools and has classmates - he will, therefore, know which of his classmates or school mates that can help him to power his vision. On the other hand, since I have read that Chief Ortom (Ph.D) has no classmates, he may not know whom exactly to appoint into which office, and governance might, once again, revert to experimentation. God forbid! My Leader, sir, Tarzoor has been consistent in the PDP, and has, so far, steered clear of religious sentiments, perhaps believing that one does not need to wear ones faith on his sleeves. On the other hand, Chief Ortom has been reported to have labelled the APC the Boko Haram party, even insinuating that to vote for the APC would be voting for the islamisation of Benue state. This means PDP is the Christian party. Now that Ortom has moved into the Islamic party, does it mean he is now a Muslim or he is still a pastor, but does not mind if Benue is islamised? This political piety is at once dangerous and confusing! Ortom must, therefore, not be allowed to eat his cake and have it. Even if there is no morality in politics, it does not mean we should not have personal morals/morality. But beyond this, before politics as we know it today came into our society, we had our concept of Natural Justice or Gba- Aondo. Party politics should not destroy this cornerstone of our society. If it does, politics will not be adding value to the Tiv Nation; rather, it would be draining us of all that is ennobling and simultaneously robbing us of all that makes the Tiv man a Tiv man! Furthermore, sir, public office is about trust. It is the basis for the principle of the Social Contract. If Benue people cannot trust Ortom now to play by the rules, when he is elected and chauffeur-driven in black jeeps; when he is inaugurated and invested with immunity, his impunity will know no bounds. We have seen what Suswam has done with power - and, by PDP (now and APC) standards, his nomination was very transparent as was his election proper! Sorry, sir, but after Gov. Suswams dimunitive outing as governor, Benue should not get someone who will further diminish the office. Finally, this issue of your confusing or ambivalent position on zoning. You talk about zoning but you are the biggest beneficiary of zoning. His means you insist on zoning only where your interest is at stake i.e. your senatorial election. In 2007, the Zone B senatorial seat was zoned to Buruku local government. But you siezed it. You annexed it. You appropriated it. Meanwhile, you are from Tarka local government. You justified this senatorial grab by saying it was a political loan. I may remind you, my Distinguished Leader, that a Buruku son, Gen. Madza (I cannot remember his first name) died, a broken-hearted man, shortly after your appropriation of that Buruku Senate seat, thanks to the power of incumbency! But eight years after, rather than return the ticket to the long suffering people of Buruku, sir, you moved to the MINDA Intermediate area whose turn it was/is to produce the next senator for the zone. You mobilised almost every who-is-who in the area to vie for governor so as to leave the coast clear for your Senate return. So every other position in Tiv land can be equitably zoned or should so be, for balance, so to say, but the Zone B Senate Seat has been permanently zoned to Tarka local government, and to the Akume/Dajoh family, and to you, Dr. George Akume, specifically! Perhaps, sir, you have a senatorial DNA? Or you studied Senatorial Studies in a school we are not aware of? And by extension, the State Chairmanship of the APC has been zoned to Zone C, but specifically to the family and house of Comrade ABBA Yard! So much for political opportunism! Meanwhile, the APC Leadership in Benue state had rejected zoning during the last party congresses. The post of State Secretary had been zoned to the Sankera Axis, and the party faithful there had zoned it to Logo local government. But a man holding that powerful office from Logo (where Ugbah hails from) might give him a powerful voice in the State EXCO, and might, in the near-future, help Ugbahs renewed governorship quest. So making a convenient case for merit, the post was taken to Ushongo, and given to Hon. Onov Ityuulugh (I hope the spelling of the surname right). As lawyers may say, this is approbating and reprobating. And although the post of Senate Minority Leader was originally zoned to the South-West, and Distinguished Sen. Ganiyu Solomon was billed to take it, it was ceded to you. But you are from the North-Central geo-political zone! Sir, you did not reject the position on the grounds of equity. If you did, you took the special effort to hide it from even your most trusted aides! My Dear Distinguished Leader, I have some other things to say, but since this letter is getting a little bit long, I most politely ask your permission to stop. I did not plan it, but now I must write you another letter i.e. Open Letter (ll). When I started this letter, it was shortly after my dinner. As I prepare to put the final full-stop, it is morning. My time-piece here says the time is 01:09am, so let me say: Good morning, sir. Simon Imobo-Tswam
Posted on: Mon, 19 Jan 2015 09:41:11 +0000

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