Akwa Ibom Guber 2023: The treachery, the plot and the enemies within (1)
By Umani Uwemedimo
In recent times, the social media space has been inundated with allegations of senior officials of the state who characteristically fund media attacks on the government they serve. The maneuvers of these Trojan horses have clearly played out better in periods of controversies and public stirs against the government. The method is to instigate a reasonable media attack on the government and turn around to leave the system at the mercy of Shylock media partners who ordinarily see no good in the administration. The actions of these shenanigans were clearly seen during the controversies that were stirred against the appointment of a new state epidemiologist last year, the Covid19 debacle with NMA in April last year, and the ongoing worship center project. It is sad yet true that the backlashes on the government are sponsored by the enemies within for their selfish interest as the clock ticks towards 2023.
In the Bible, Absalom, a promising young man and heir to the throne occupied by David, lost his life in a desperate evil desire to outsmart his father and take over the throne; surprisingly, his younger brother Adonijah didn’t seem to learn any lesson and followed same route,and again met similar consequences.
These two instances reinforce, the admonition of Marcus Tullius Cicero, a Roman statesman and academic critic, who played an important role in the politics of the Roman Republic: “A nation can survive its fools and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banners openly. But the traitor moves among those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself.”
What Cicero implied was that the stability of a system would be an uphill task in the presence of the enemies within- men and women who are defined by double -dealing and equivocality. Macbeth, the Thane of Glamis and great Scottish General in Shakespeare’s literally classic, Macbeth, is an exemplification of an enemy within.
Harping on the prophecy of the three witches, Macbeth, in his reckless bravado, and with encouragements from his wife, Lady Macbeth, murdered his way to the top, beginning with his boss, King Duncan and several others such as Banquo, Macduff’s wife and children. Apart from the ghost of Banquo, Macbeth had Macduff the Thane of fife and a child of Caesarean birth and Malcolm’s army to contain. These two combined to drag Macbeth down.
The above glaringly explicates the nature of some political actors in the state who are best understood in the context of Cicero’s thought- of men who lack character on one hand, and Shakespeare’s unchecked ambition on the other hand. For instance, how could a key player in government be steadily inclined to patronizing the critics and enemies of the same government in which he’s serving? Why do some people betray years of friendship and loyalty just to get a little glean of the spotlight?
While it’s not difficult to divorce these antics from their selfish ambitions of 2023, it suffices to ask, should Governor Emmanuel’s magnanimity and humane gestures be sacrificed on the altar of unchecked ambitions? Like Macbeth, must they “murder” the Governor and the interest of the state in order to be at the top? For sure, Maya Angelou got it right that, “the thorns from the bush one has planted, nourished and pruned, prick more deeply and draw more blood”.
By hobnobbing the opposition, the aim of these obscurantists is to create an iron ring that would leave their principal completely at their mercy, and affect his ability to fully call the shots in his succession agenda in 2023. The aim of these enemies within the system, point at this direction.
They should know that, although the knives of betrayal and drama cut deep and hurt… they also trim away the nonsense and reveal our true friends.
When Mr Emmanuel, in one of his 2021 new year messages assured that he was bent on completing all his road projects and other educational and health infrastructural programmes, he obviously had belief in the sincerity of his lieutenants to stand by him and help him succeed. The creativity he seeks from his team members, involves bringing ideas that would help add pep to the Eight-Point Completion Agenda, that should subsume all agenda of personal interests, selfish gains and ignoble premature ambitions.
2023, like the Governor recently said, is an assignment that only God should be allowed to execute, to his own Glory. What should be most important as early as 2021, ought to be everything, but parochial political interests of succession. Power belongs to God, and the ignoble quest to cut corners and gain it, has been the abbatoir of several promising men before now.
