Akwa Ibom politics: PDP has failed Akwa Ibom people woefully – Udom Ekpoudom
-I promote peace in my area unlike others who create cultism
DIG Udom Ekpoudom {Rtd} is not your ideal Nigerian politician. He is frank and shots from the hip. Though he is no longer in the ruling People’s Democratic Party, PDP in the state, he is not opposed to Governor Udom Emmanuel’s Administration.
In this interview with journalists in , Akwa Ibom State, the retired super cop who has indicated interest to represent Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District in the National Assembly in 2023 believes that it is the responsibility of every Akwa Ibom person irrespective of political divide to make sure that the governor finishes his tenure and lands honourably in 2023 for the interest of the state.
So many socio political groups in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District have been mounting pressure on you to contest the Senate seat, what is your respond to these demands as at now?
As a matter of fact, since I retired from the Nigerian Police Force some years ago, my people have been asking me to contest for the Ikot Ekpene senatorial district seat because it was zoned to our area; that is Abak/ Etim Ekpo / Ika federal constituency but I advised them to allow our governor then who was about finishing his tenure as a governor to contest because I was impressed by what he did in Akwa Ibom. Now that the coast is clear the pressure has started again.
You know there is history and I don’t want history to be written in future that there was a man their people asked to represent them but he refused and other people took over the place, so I have now agree to contest and represent my people in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district, so it is no more rumour, I’m contesting and by the grace of God I’m going to succeed
You have not contested in any election though you have been involved in making others, how prepared are you for this battle ahead of you?
I am more prepared than those that have been going there. Local politics is different from national politics.
But every politics is local?
Yes, but it is different; you don’t understand what I’m talking about. Well they can succeed locally. Local politics is different from national politics. In national politics, when you meet big faces you will start to be afraid and you will just be there and become ‘I concour.’
You will stay there without bringing something to your people. It is not only because I studied political science up to post graduate level and I climbed in the police force to almost the last rang, you can never be a deputy inspector general of police without taking national politics into consideration . They may make mouth but I understand more than them
What do you think you are bringing to the table that will sell you to the people of Ikot Ekpene senatorial district?
There are so many things. There are so many things I have done, not only for Ikot Ekpene senatorial district but for Akwa Ibom state.
I cannot point at any body that used his personal money to give scholarships to people, I cannot point at anybody in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district that was not in government but was able to give jobs to the people. I cannot point at anybody in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district that remembered the traditional rulers. By the time I came back, I gave traditional rulers money to build hall.
As of today I have people that I’m sponsoring in different schools with my money. How many who are in government are using their money to give scholarships? Many police officers join the force through me, not to talk of so many things that I have done. I promote peace in my area unlike others who create cultism, but I cannot do that rather with my private money I’m bringing these youths up
-Do you think your years in the police force have equipped you for the task ahead?
-Yeah, my brother for me to join the police force as a graduate and to climbed to the rank of DIG is no mean feat. I have worked in the division as admin officer, DPO, I went to area commander, from area commander, I became commissioner of police, AIG zone, from there DIG in charge of the whole south south zone.
-After your retirement, apart from setting up your private business, did you have intention of contesting any election in future?
-Honestly, my plans were to retire, come back to my state because I love my state then relax. I never planned to join politics, although politics is my area but when I came back, my people said no, DIG you can not come back and stay like this, join politics.
After I joined politics I was living in Abak and they said no, they persuaded me and I have to come and live in Uyo. So what I am saying is that I didn’t plan to join politics after I left police force. It is just now that its done on me that it will be history if I don’t serve my people politically and history will not be kind with me. Don’t forget the way we play politics in Akwa Ibom is not the way national politics is played. Politics is not a matter of going to steal the money, build houses all over the country.
That is the way our people understand it, but politics is about service. For instance a local government chairman has to be a matured or retired person, either in government or in private sector, bit here everybody is a politician.
Udom Ekpoudom
When I go there, by the grace of God, what do I need, I’m very contented with life, I’m not going to build house again, marry because I’m married and my children are all grown up and they are working. What will I use the money for again except for my people and let them see the difference between the past and the present. That is the essence I want to go there and it is God that is sending me there.
-Going by what you are saying, it means the younger generations do not really have a political future in your calculation?
-No, don’t misquote me, we can’t do without the youths. What they use the Youths for now is what I can’t use the use for. If I do that, God will punish me.
What they use the youth for now is for cultism and violence. They don’t use the youths for something important apart from buying cars for them. Cars are not asset. I will make sure that youths in my senatorial district are taken care of. If you can go to school, I will make sure you go to any school you want to go to and to any level.
I will look for job for you. If you cannot go to school, I will attach you with someone doing business or any trade of your choice and after graduation I will empower your to be independent. I want to encourage my people along that line not to go and buy gun and give to them to kill people, buy car for them and tomorrow the car will breakdown. But through their businesses they can buy car. I cannot forget the youths, they are the future of tomorrow
-You seems to have a lofty agenda for your people, but in all these you need a political platform to realize this, how grounded is your party APC in your senatorial district at this movement?
-I am happy you people are educated and you know what is happening in the country now. APC is taking over the whole country and Akwa Ibom will never be an exception. You will see many people will defect to APC before that time. We are qualified to take over this state.
If we take over the state, why can’t we take over my senatorial district? We have just finished the registration of members, we know the number of people that registered, including our brothers in PDP because they are tired with the system. They worked for them for many years without anything to show. The only thing is that I’m appealing to Akwa Ibom people to put hands together to help the governor to finish his tenure successfully.
-Are you campaigning for the governor to end well?
He is our governor and you cannot impeach him, he has to land. We want a peaceful landing so that when we come in there will be no wahala.
Is that not more or less an anti party activity that you are engaged in ?
I wonder what how wishing our governor a successful landing will become anti party. He is the governor of Akwa Ibom State and not that of APC or PDP. The moment we get certain things right the better for the development of the state.
– What are the projects that you intend to bring to your people and Akwa Ibom people as the senator of the federal republic of Nigeria?
-If you see the way I love this state, only God knows, when the state was created I was DPO and by that time I was a very young person. When I said I help people to join the police force, is not only those from Ikot Ekpene senatorial district.
I helped a lot of people from the whole state and I have my projects for them. As I am going to help my people from the senatorial district I will not forget other party in the state. When you go to other states you will see good roads and other federal presence, those are the things I will bring.
-Talking about roads, these are the infrastructure government should provide for the people but your party APC has not done this so how are you going to convince Akwa Ibom people to vote for APC in the general election?
-Akwa Ibom people are not blind; we have seen what PDP has done for this past years. We had a head of state that was from the South south, what did he do for us? Nothing. All these things we are fighting for now he did not do it for us.
You cannot blame APC, it was PDP government that could not develop our state. Look at what just happened; the president is fair to us and has given us a federal university of Technology. The country is so large so what you need you ask. That is why we need to send those that will be able to go there and look for our good and not their selfish interest.
-Recently members of your party in both chambers of the national assembly voted against the electronic transfer of result during election and this has brought a lot of outcry in the public space, how will you look at this injustice done on the electorates by your party?
-Do you call that injustice? To who; the masses? That is not correct. We are Nigerians and we know what we are talking about. APC was not stupid when it rejected that. PDP know what they were looking for because they want to use that to truncate the election..
That is what they want and APC does not want that. The whole thing was planned by PDP so that they will commit fraud, so APC said no. So as a journalist, be objective and don’t say it was injustice against the masses. The masses themselves prefer the present one, even the card reader, how many times did it work during that election. We will get there one day.
-How will we get there when we don’t start to use it now ?
-The country is developing. You know PDP knows they are depleting and everybody is rejecting PDP. They are looking for a shorter way of coming back to power at the centre but it is not possible.
-Do you think with the performance of the present government at the centre that APC deserves another shot at the presidency?
-What has the presidency done that should not be done or what is the offence committed by the presidency, look, crime is local just as the politics is local, that is why in every state, there is what is call security vote in billions, so if there are too much crime in your state, that means you are eating the money and does not want to use it to fight crime.
Will Buhari come from Abuja to go and fight crime in Kastina or Anambra state? The governors have to wake up and use the funds to fight crime. I have been in the field for a long time and I know what I’m talking about.
– But almost all the governors are complaining that the police is not directly under their commands?
-But they are using the police 24 hours. Have you ever gone to government house and you don’t see the police. Anything the government want them to do, they will do.
-Are you saying from experience it contemplate realities?
-From experiences. I cannot imagine that they are fighting somewhere in the state and the governor told the Commissioner to send his men and he refused, such Commissioner will pack.
– if the governor is so powerful how come they cant contain insurgency in the northern part of the country?
-They know why, that means they don’t use security votes the way they should use. Obong Victor Attah made statement once that the governors are the problems of this country. If they should work the way they should work, allow the local government system to work the way it should work, allow the judiciary to work the way they should work, the problem would have gone by now but they got the whole money inside their pockets. Crime will be high.
-Apart from ordinary crime, there is this problem of insurgency in the country that we even have a spillover effect in Akwa Ibom state of recent, why is it happening now under APC government?
-This thing started during PDP government and by then I was in service and they burnt the force headquarters, burnt the UN headquarters, they took over some states in the North. If we didn’t have Buhari as a president, by now all of us would have been Muslim. The man is using military tactics to fight these people, no other person can do what he is doing. So he is doing his job, only that the governors are not doing their job
-You said PDP is known for rigging election and you are contesting election here where PDP is in charge , how will this pan out for your aspiration?
-We were all in the PDP so we know the game . When you know the tactics, you know the antidote, so there is no cause for alarm and I don’t want to talk too much on that. I mentioned here that they train young boys to kill people, that time they will not be able to kill anybody. Now they cultivate cult.
-The state government has enacted a law against cultism?
-I normally pity our governor, is like he is alone in this fight and I like the guy. But some people that are very close to him are cultivating cultists. Is just like you planting onions and keep watering it, they plant them and keep them for election. For instance in Etim Ekpo, in last week or so, a village was attacked and they killed some people. These are cultists planted by some people in PDP government. They plant them so that they will be used for 2023 general election.
-Don’t you think the 2019 election was generally very peaceful in Akwa Ibom state?
-Let us not go back to that, let’s face the future and leave the past because we know what happened, but what I’m saying is despite the fact that in Akwa Ibom state everything is PDP, it is not PDP people that will conduct the election. Always have it at the back of your mind that PDP is not what it used to be in the past. People are leaving in droves , those who are very clean e don’t want to walk with some of these people.
-Are you in essence saying that the election in 2023 will not be free and fair?
-You are saying the opposite, this time I’m telling you that election of 2023 will not be as 2019, that it is going to be free and fair. 2019 was not free and fair but this one is going to be free and fair because we are going to have the people that will make it free and fair. The governor is doing well but the people are cultivating cultism in the state. Last December the governor gave things for Christmas like rice and majority of them were sent to cultists.
-Cultists also eat sir?
-If we know the after effect of cultism, nobody should encourage them.
-You were also accused of using boys to hijack election materials in about four wards in Etim Ekpo in the 2019 ?
-Don’t mind them, they were talking to please themselves. As far as election is concerned, we won in my ward apart from the antics of the INEC, APC won in my ward. They cancel and cancel but then we still won
Do you have followership in your local government area?
You will see. People are fed up with PDP way of doing things. The mistake they are making in PDP is that they share and my local government belongs to one person only. When they give money he will do what he likes with the money and people are regretting now, but unlike APC are for everybody. In PDP they behave like military government-dictatorship which is not good. I mean PDP in Etim Ekpo in particular.
One of the cardinal objectives of the present government was to bring industrialization into Akwa Ibom state to change the narrative of Akwa Ibom being a 100 percent civil service state, what is your critical assessment so far?
Let me say like this, the thing I like the governor for is that he does things with the fear of God. That is from my assessment. If he has security intelligence some people will not be allowed to pass the gate of the government house. Like in my clan we have cultist there and I don’t think he is aware of this.
