Why I fell out with Umana: The many tales of Godswill Akpabio
[ GreatDavid Bassey ] | April 30th 2016
A recent online media report claimed that the former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, told Thompson Essien during an “interaction” between the two foes-now-turned-friends that the former secretary to the state government (SSG), Mr Umana Okon Umana, “had to go because he refused to resign to pursue his gubernatorial ambition after being directed to do so” by the state governor.
The reference here is to the Gestapo manner in which Umana was removed from office in 2013, an indiscretion in which the wife of the governor, who was not an official of the state government, played a macabre role by leading a team of police men and SSS operatives to seal off the office of the former SSG.
The fact that Senator Akpabio has not refuted the statement attributed to him days after its publication suggests that the attribution is correct. That is why I am offering this opinion. But before I go further I want to say that I am aware that Umana had publicly said he had left what happened in the hands of God and moved on. It is interesting, though, that the issue appears still to be gnawing at the deadened conscience of Senator Godswill Akpabio.
In the hands of Senator Akpabio facts seem to assume mutability. When the story of his gangster-style disengagement of the former SSG broke, Nigerians reacted in horror at the strange happening in a democracy. The Nation newspaper of August 8, 2013 fittingly described Akpabio in a condemnatory editorial as a tin god. Why was it necessary for Akpabio in an unprecedented act of impunity to use his wife to lead security personnel to seal up a public office?
Akpabio's excuse then was that the action of his wife was justified because the former SSG had made a public declaration of his plan to run for the office of governor. However, this excuse was not tenable as there was no evidence of the public declaration in terms of place, time and witness. Nobody was fooled because other commissioners and public servants like Bassey Albert Akpan, Efiong Abia, Ekpeyong Ntekim, Samuel Akpan and even Udom Emmanuel who succeeded Umana campaigned actively for the office of governor while still serving long after Umana's disengagement from office.
Akpabio’s latest justification of his barbaric action against a man he still dubiously describes as his brother is laughable. Umana himself had in the past stated that his disengagement from office as SSG was a non-issue and that all Akpabio needed to do was announce the appointment of a new SSG. In order to underscore his position that his disengagement from office as SSG was a non-issue, Umana personally congratulated his successor and attended his swearing-in ceremony. This was a rare act of maturity and statesmanship.
If Umana who was the target of the action of Akpabio and his wife said he had moved on and left everything in the hands of God, why can't Akpabio leave him to enjoy his peace? Akpabio and his wife acted as if Akpabio will remain in office as governor forever. They forgot that a tin god is not the Almighty God. Today Umana is a former SSG but Akpabio is also a former governor who was sacked by the Constitution on May 29, 2015. Has Akpabio learnt any lessons about the ephemeral nature of power? Has he learnt to make peace with the truth?
Akpabio is walking away from the truth with one lie after another. If Akpabio insists that he directed Umana to resign because he had gubernatorial ambition, the natural question would be why would he have singled out the former SSG among many members of the former governor’s cabinet who also had and even expressed ambition to run for office of governor? As Umana has said before, a governor need not give a reason for the routine removal of a public official. The question was and still is, Why would a Governor's wife who is not a public officer personally seal up a public office?
What completely takes away any pretence to integrity in Akpabio’s latest story is that Umana’s successor, Udom Emmanuel, who is the current governor of the state, espoused his interest in the office of governor and actively campaigned to actualise that ambition while he was in office. Both Governor Akpabio as he then was and his wife publicly campaigned for Udom Emmanuel to be the next governor while he served as SSG. Udom Emmanuel remained in office campaigning to be governor until it was five months to the election. Umana was removed from office about two years to the election.
Akpabio is resorting to falsehood to justify his wife’s illegal and most blatant abuse of state power by a non-public officer who led security operatives to seal off a public office and lock out workers while the occupant of the office was out of the state. It is hard to be consistent with lies.
But Akpabio has been consistent about one thing. He is as constant as the northern star about how he has treated every single person that assisted him on his way up. He has hounded and humiliated them all. So the issue is not how he treated Umana. That is how he has treated every one of his benefactor. The roll call shows that it is a fatal character flaw in the former governor.
Akpabio harassed and humiliated the late musician, Christiana Essien-Igbokwe, who helped him to get his first real job before Obong Victor Attah brought him into government. From her death bed, the lady of songs, as she was fondly called, placed a curse on Akpabio for hounding her over a legitimate supply business with the Akwa Ibom State newspaper cooperation. The late Dr Ime Sampson Umana, perhaps more than any other person, gave Akpabio a head start in life. Dr Ime Umana, who is to be buried on 7 May 2016, was the man who bought the JAMB form for Akpabio and paid his school fees at the University of Calabar. But Akpabio, at the peak of his power as governor of Akwa Ibom State, slammed a trumped-up charge of terrorism on the man and dragged him through the courts in the land till the man died in a car accident last year in the course of attending one of the court proceedings.
It has been the same story of harassment and humiliation by Akpabio against Atuekong Don Etiebet who employed the former governor and treated him as a brother all through his days at EmmisTelecoms Limited. While he lorded over Akwa Ibom as governor, Akpabio declared war on Etiebet, and hired hack writers to insult the elder statesman at every given excuse, calling him an expired politician. Akpabio even tried to bribe PDP leaders to remove Etiebet from the position of life member of the party’s BOT. Akpabio wanted, as always, to be the only cock to crow in the PDP from Akwa Ibom State; that is why he went after Etiebet’s position in the party.
Akpabio similarly hounded and humiliated the late Fidelis Etim, former rector of the Federal Polytechnic, Mubi, Adamawa State,who played a pivotal role in getting him appointed into the state’s Executive Council as commissioner under Obong Attah. In fact Senator Akpabio was not on speaking terms with Etim by time the man died. Akpabio equally paid back Chief Uffot Ekaette with evil. The former secretary to the Government of the Federation it was who joined hands with other Akwa Ibom leaders to ensure that Akpabio became governor of the state in 2007. Chief (Arc.) Otu ItaToyo, former chairman of the state PDP, was one of those leaders, and so was Bishop Samuel Akpan. Both men received their share of Akpabio’s evil-for-good reward.
Akpabio’s string of humiliation and insults for Obong Attah, who did not only make him one of the longest serving commissioners in the state but treated him like his son, is an open book. It needs no retailing.
So when Akpabio sent his wife to humiliate Umana on 29 July 2013, it was consistent with the way the former governor has always treated his benefactors. It is in Akpabio’s DNA to return evil for good.
Godswill Akpabio may be smug and gloat in his humiliation of his benefactors. But he need not be, because God has the ultimate humiliation for him. The Lord of hosts says in Proverbs 17:13 that “Evil will never leave the house of one who pays back evil for good.”
He should give up looking for mendacious ways of soothing his uneasy conscience. As Uthman dan Fodio put it, “Conscience is an open wound; only truth can heal it.”
The question is, why is Akpabio still hankering after the issue when the victim of his power drunkenness has moved on and is at peace with himself and God? I guess the former governor is, perhaps inadvertently, trying to remind himself of how all powerful he once was. That in itself points back to his myopia, which had led him and his wife to carry on as though they would be in power forever.
Given the way Akpabio still talks, the new reality of his life doesn’t seem to have taught him a lesson. And he is not able to avert his mind to why he cannot keep relationships, why he has moved against all those who have helped him in his life journey. That is the kernel of the issue.
GREATDAVID BASSEY
Etinan| Nigeria | Global Citizen
Tel: +2347065679865
Twitter: @DrGreatDavid
Isaac Nobenz
No comments:
Post a Comment