What if OBA is not Guilty?
In the last two weeks, I have entertained myself with articles written around the Peoples Democratic Party Governorship ticket as it has to do with Governor Udom Emmanuel’s succession plan, his anointed successor and the 2023 Governorship election in Akwa Ibom State. These articles are often very long thesis submitted by Bar Emmanuel Enoidem, PDP National Legal Adviser and Leader of Maintain Peace Movement countering Torobong Ekpo and against Senator Bassey Albert who represents Uyo Senatorial District in the Upper chamber of the National Assembly. A cursory look at the articles will readily reveal the mischief behind it- a discreet Campaign of calumny, maybe, targeted at setting Governor Udom Emmanuel against Bassey Albert and vice versa.
The matter is not one that I should dabble into except that one cannot at any point in time be neutral in the Politics that may someday affect him. That is natural for every Journalist. That is why Ngugi Wa Thiong’o in his book, “Writers in Politics”, posited that no writer can be neutral. “…What he (Writer) can choose is one or the other side in the battlefield: the side of the people or the side of those social forces and classes that try to keep the people down. What he (writer) or she cannot do is to remain neutral. Every writer is a writer in politics. The only question is what and whose Politics”.
After perusing all the darts thrown at Senator Bassey Albert by Bar Emmanuel Enoidem over the article written by Torobong Ekpo which did not look good on Him Umo Eno who is reported to be Governor Emmanuel’s succession plan, I felt I should write (hold brief for if you care) for OBA today. Is that strange? I think so. It is not really OBA’s Politics that I seek to play as Ngugi would suggest, but the politics of any man who have invested his time, energy, staked his comfort and security for a particular Politics to make it Successful but gets labeled, blackmailed, scandalised as having an entitlements mentality as he seeks to reap the fruit of such investment he made in the past. That is Politics of immorality tactically played against key individuals who, take them away from the 2019 PDP equation, Governor Udom Emmanuel would have lost a second term to my power-thirsty APC in Akwa Ibom State. Senator Bassey Albert was a compelling and relevant factor in that equation. The sum total of the writs I read which can pass for the mindset and judgment of the system is that Senator Bassey Albert is approaching his 2023 Governorship aspiration with “a false sense of entitlements”. Very many weak minds have swallowed this blackmail without asking whether anything is wrong in any person feeling entitled assuming that is what it is after one had worked hard enough to feel the same.
But what if Senator Bassey Albert is not guilty of this claim by Bar Emmanuel Enoidem who seeks to be a Senator in 2023 on the crest of his contributions to the PDP and Governor Udom Emmanuel? Have we spared a thought to look at the roles played by Senator Bassey Albert and each of the characters currently under attack, blackmailed and scandalised by the very system they help to stabilise and have we asked whether there are commitments, expressly or implied which His Excellency, Governor Udom Emmanuel made to them regarding 2023 Governorship election in particular? Have we considered what would have been the likely outcome of the 2019 general election in Akwa Ibom State had these characters not thrown their weights behind the governor? APC presented a potent threat and even danger to the PDP remaining in power beyond 2019. The party was swelling in strength and reaching out to negotiate with any possible obstacle because the party wanted power. What would have happened if for instance, Senator Bassey Albert took the baits dangled before him and dumped the party? What would have happened if the efforts and mobilisations he carried out during the election were for the APC against PDP?
I believe that the governor must have discussed the 2023 Governorship election with Bassey Albert, then the only Senator from Akwa Ibom State under the PDP and Chairman of Caucus. Senator Albert wanted to be Governor in 2015 but stepped down to Gov Emmanuel and ran for the Senate. Since then and as expected, he has not hidden his intentions to run for the governorship office in 2023 when power would have reverted to Uyo Senatorial District. Thus, in discussing Governor Udom Emmanuel second term which was seriously threatened especially with the defection of Chief Godswill Akpabio and a likelihood of a federal might helping the opposition, the governor, most likely must have offered to support him then. This could have been done by the governor expressly or impliedly which possibly could have formed the basis of the confidence with which Senator Bassey Albert has been pursuing his gubernatorial ambition since then. If this is the case, how can we then be right to describe him as desperate and having a false sense of entitlements as a way of criminalising his right to seek the Governorship office?
APC had two openings to sack Governor Udom Emmanuel before and during the 2019 general elections. The first opening was to secure the support of Lawmakers who needed to defect to the ruling APC and possibly, impeach the governor whose performance has been below average. Rt Honorable Onofiok Luke resisted the move, rallied the House and kept it intact and thus, secured the governor from impeachment. Moves were made when some Lawmakers defected and attempted to change the leadership of the House. That move was a prelude of larger political theatrics which aimed the governor’s seat. Onofiok Luke with his colleagues foiled that attempt. We hardly hear anyone talk about this except to be told that the “governor gave them money”. And I ask would a very wealthy opposition of the 2019 era not have given them more if they had wanted to play that ball? You know the answer!
The second option was weakening Uyo Senatorial District in particular and making it difficult for PDP to have a foothold there. One sure way of doing this was getting Senator Bassey Albert to defect to the APC. He refused it when the idea was thrown to him possibly because he wanted to demonstrate loyalty and commitment to the PDP and Governor Udom Emmanuel he earlier stood down his guber ambition for. When I attacked OBA last year when his men became hostile to us, I rubbished that loyalty and commitment he demonstrated by concluding that he blackmailed the system to return to the Senate. That was just Politics. Truth is that if OBA had consented to the APC deal, he surely would have been given the party ticket to the Senate just as the PDP did. He also would have made money and as APC is looking at Akwa Ibom state today in particular and South-South in general, he probably would have been one of the power brokers in the ruling party today sharing power in the Government at the centre. What that means is that by his position as a sitting Senator for Uyo Senatorial District, he was a big factor to both the APC and the PDP if they were to win the 2019 governorship election. He chose the PDP. He chose Governor Udom Emmanuel against Obong Nsima Ekere. How fair is it then for Bar Enoidem and Maintain Peace Movement to be at the forefront of attacking the Senator because he wants to be a governor?
When men say politics is a dirty game full of treachery, immorality, they find expression in situations like. Many persons in leadership positions in Nigerian political circle lack honor and discipline. They barely can keep their words and commitments and this equally translates to how they treat issues of governance and citizens’ welfare and conscience. Where circumstances warrant that they naturally cannot keep their earlier commitments, they barely can explain it to those they have entered a pack with and possibly renegotiate the deals. They believe they are already in power and that they can do and undo politically speaking. But how wrong they can be? There is always a time that the chicken will come home to roost! There is always an election and every election is as critical as one can envisage. History abounds where incumbent Presidents, governors, Senators are defeated and sometimes because they did not keep the commitments which could have attracted support and loyalty for them to remain in power.
This is why I have personally held that Hon Bar Emmanuel Enoidem is playing bad Politics for Governor Udom Emmanuel as leader of his Maintain Peace Movement when he set out to attack Senator Bassey Albert believing that the Senate was behind Torobong Ekpo’s articles. Where is the tact that those working for the King must exhibit so as to bring goodwill and not bad blood to the King? Senator Bassey Albert in his verbal outrage in Ibiono as reported was playing his Politics and was right to have so complained that as a sitting Senator he has been ignored in the Maintain Peace Movement Politics in his Local Government Area. His stab on the Senator was even without a velvet glove. The stab pulled by Bar Enoidem made Governor Udom Emmanuel look dreaded, draconian and power-drunk, so drunk that he cannot remember those who stood with him in the past.
Those who nursed gubernatorial ambition ahead of 2023 and stood firmly with Gov Udom Emmanuel against the thick plot to deny him a second term in 2019 are right if they approach the 2023 Governorship ticket of the PDP with a sense of entitlements. Why should they not and what is wrong with that? Why should that be a subject of subtle blackmail and who does Politics without expectations? Even Peter and the twelve Apostle of Jesus Christ had a sense of entitlements. They asked Jesus what would be their share in the Kingdom which was to come, Mathew 19:27. Can anyone have expectations or a sense of entitlements if he has not invested his time, energy, connection and most times, even staked his life and security to a political or religious struggle? I don’t think so. Work done, the price paid, the loyalty shown and the comfort sacrificed breed a sense of entitlements. It lays a foundation for reward and reward can be continuous especially if there was a focus that serves as the basis of the compromise. Let Politicians stop being dubious by overtly seeking to be noncommittal once they get to their destination of choice.
The law of morality will stop Governor Udom Emmanuel from dismissing Sen Basset Albert and those politicians who played key roles in his emergence as governor in 2019 on the excuses trending in the public space. When a man expressly or impliedly commits himself to fulfil an obligation to another, the law will stop him from recanting. Where we may not be able to sue the governor and plead the principle of estoppel against his dumping homegrown politicians ahead of 2023, we shall lurk here in the public space to remind him that our Politics must be hygienic. That drive for political hygiene starts with political leaders in Akwa Ibom State honoring their bonds whether expressly executed or implied actions. That is one surest way of Maintaining Peace in Akwa Ibom State.
My name is Solomon Johnny. I write as a Citizen Journalist.
