By Osondu AHIRIKA
David Augustine is a journalist and lawyer I very much love to read. Especially, when his famous grandmother speaks. I didn’t get the same energy and conviction of his usually incisive essays, when I read his piece, ‘As Gov. Udom Emmanuel Declares for a Second Term as Governor
From the opening lines, I laughed hard and figured at once, how pathetically cynical and decidedly blindsided, the submission will be. If you didn’t read it, here is the first two paragraphs unedited.
“Yesterday a senior friend, who I consider very apolitical, called me and asked me what projects I consider to be the high end projects executed by the current administration in the state. I took some seconds of his airtime to think. He thought I had hung up and was asking me if I was still there. Yes, I was, but I was scratching my head to figure out a plausible answer. I am still thinking…
Last year, an association I belong to hosted a National converge in Uyo. I was a member of the media sub committee. At the point of planning the souvenir programme, the back page was reserved for what the committee wanted to be a signature project of the Udom Emmanuel administration to showcase how the state was progressing. All through that planning and the actual printing of the programme, we searched but could not find any. Some members wanted us to just place any old project from the previous Akpabio era, but it did not jell with a majority of the members, because it would not reflect what was actually and currently going on. The summary of the story is that the back page remained blank.”
Hahahaha! I never heard anything so deliberately shallow. How could The Association see the ubiquitous and magnificent, new DAKKADA Secretariat complex, which the hitherto abandoned 10th Anniversary Hotel was converted to?
Will your detractors consciously acknowledge your achievements when such will scare, irritate and judge their prejudice?
What irreversible damage a display of that edifice, which was executed amidst the worst economic recession Nigeria has fallen into, on the reserved backpage of the programme could have done to the desperate propaganda, to pass off Governor Udom Emmanuel as a non performer, would have done in the perception of the visitors, who, by intent, they want to cause them believe, Udom Emmanuel has nothing to show? So, I understand.
That aside, hear him again. “It is not really a problem that the governor is seeking a second term. What I don’t understand is what he will tell the people as to why he deserves a second term. The talk about industrialization is simply laughable. The so called industries pale in significance when you put them side by side some basic small scale cottage industries you find in Onitsha and Nnewi. They look so inconsequential when you place them side by side big industrial complexes you find elsewhere. But because those who should know are just set out to deceive the people, they make heavy weather of these toy establishments. ”
Again I laughed. I agree with David Augustine’committee that, the Metering Solutions Factory and the Jubilee Syringe factory are ‘small’, compared to the ‘big industrial complexes’ in Lagos, Port Harcourt and Nnewi. What he didn’t tell us is that, those industrial hubs took decades to evolve and build, not less than four years.
Certainly, Rome wasn’t built in a day. I’m even pleasantly surprised, the Association acknowledged that, some industries have taken off. Only that, they did not give Governor Udom Emmanuel credit for, Akwa Ibom State in the current dispensation, being the only State, besides Lagos, that, could attract foreign direct investments, when investors were running away from Nigeria after the catastrophic change and lifeless economy, the President Muhammadu Buhari administration misgoverened Nigeria into.
For the roads under construction, how will this partisan Association see them? In Uyo the capital City, Governor Emmanuel has constructed and inaugurated more than 30 roads. If they don’t see those ones in the Capital City where they reside and do business, how do you expect them to accept the fact of massive road constructions in far flung towns of Esit Eket, Eket, Ini, Ikono, Uruan, Itu, Obot Akara, Udung Ukor, Nsit Atai, Ibesikpo Asutan, Abak, Onna, Mkpat Enin and Ibiono Ibom, Oruk Anam, Nsit Ubium, Nsit Ibom, Etinan, among others?
When this Association lampoons the ‘slow pace’ of the Eket remodeling project and the stadium complex, they willingly forget the capital intensity of redesigning a fully developed city. The monstrous compensation that is involved and the billions it will gulp, and how to balance that, with availability of funds and critical financing of other sub sectors and services in the state.
How will The association give Governor Emmanuel the thumbs up that, he cleared a backlog of 10 years gratuities and pension he inherited and has paid salaries to date, even after rejecting the Federal Government’s bail bond, when several states like Osun, Kogi, Imo, Edo etc are owing despite receiving the bail bonds? The Paris refunds was its right, mind you.
Akwa Ibom State Government under Governor Udom Emmanuel is the only, I know, that has initiated several options for the public to independently cross-check and verify projects, she has executed. Only a government that is so sure-footed and confident of her performance can initiate social media hashtags like, #UdomThePerformingGovernor, #whatudomhasdonewithourmoney, and the open challenge to citizens to take pictures on projects in their communities, make comments and win cash prizes.
There are several television and radio programmes, including online streaming of countless projects by the Udom Emmanuel led PDP administration that is easily accessible on the dial of a button.
I am however not shocked they won’t see, much more, acknowledge them. I understand the patent dilemma of this Association that is paranoid, Governor Emmanuel has declared for a second term. In scripture, we read of a blind man that told Jesus Christ, he saw men as trees. It took a second touch by Jesus for the blind man to see clearly(see Mark 8:24-27). Folks’, Governor Udom Emmanuel’s inevitable second term, will open their eyes.
Are you not shocked by the sickening hypocrisy of the very Choir that said PDP administrations didn’t do anything in 16 years and that, former Governor Godswill Akpabio was a failure, turnaround shamelessly, to reel out several achievements of the same man and his predecessor, Obong Victor Attah, in an inordinate quest to compare the 16 years to three years plus of Governor?
I however concur with my brother, David Augustine on one score, ‘I wish our dear governor a happy declaration.’ The rest flies in the face of conscientious reasoning.
