Ignatius Edet again By Otobong Sampson

 

Let men be wise by instinct if they can,
but when this fails, be wise by good advice.
— Sophocles  

Remember his days as speaker, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly? Certainly, we can’t shove that into the archives so soon. We also remember Alawo’s blind and grisly ambition to return a third time to the state parliament. We can’t forget the battle for the heart and soul of Ibiono politics between him and Finance Commissioner Bassey Albert. We all know the end of that battle and its ending. I would spare Engr. Edet the pains and discomfort of refreshing his memory with the humbling upper-cut dealt him by the politically savvy Albert.

With such humbling punch, the finance man had proved his gifting is beyond the statistics of naira and kobo. In what was a political masterstroke, he brought Ignatius Edet down from his high horse where he sat as an effete and effeminate speaker and reveled in self-adulation. He masterly transported him into political obscurity and neatly confined the man to stark oblivion where he remained until recently when Mother Nature smiled on him and dusted him out for a degree of faint spotlight as UCCDA chairman. Yet, Edet’s peacockish attitude remains and has spilled over to his new job.

When Alawo should humbly go about his new job that came at the extreme benevolence of Governor Akpabio, a job that clearly demotes his person as a former speaker, he has instead opted to be a ‘big man’ again, forgetting he holds a public office and should be ‘open’ and accessible. Here is a candid advice: If the UCCDA boss is ‘too big,’ even for the press he should resign his job and go back to his private concern, that is, if he has any.

A look at his antecedents makes it hardly surprising though. For a man who after winning the right for tenancy to the House of Assembly and his subsequent elevation to the speakership seat, who came to regard his friends of the hustling years as leprous beings not fit enough for crumbs of his stumbled-on fortune, nothing from him can be shocking.

If Uyo City Capital Development Authority (UCCDA) was guilty of irregularities in the past regarding its mandate and functions, its misdeeds under the Ignatius Edet led Board has assumed a disturbing trend. The mindlessness and lawlessness that traces its field operations since the constitution of the present Board, to put it mildly, is both distressing and alarming. The Authority has not only been a serial lawbreaker, it does so with reckless impunity. And you begin to wonder if its chairman is the same man who has been a speaker of the State House of Assembly and two-term parliamentarian – a place where the law supposedly guides every action.

It is an open secret that staff of the Authority are always on extortion spree, marking and demolishing structures and buildings whose owners can’t negotiate kickbacks while turning a blind eye to the ones whose owners have stuffed their pocket with naira notes. And in other instances, top staff of the Board can be used for victimization purposes for the right price.
Not that he fared any better in his days in parliament anyway, but one had expected him to learn enough especially during the tragicomedy of his resignation-after-impeachment as speaker and be a better man in public office if ever again.

The House during his leadership was simply dour, dull, bland, and unexciting. It tottered without aim and was a shame to parliament; it was everything parliament shouldn’t be. It is a relief that era is since gone and it will do us a great deal of good if we struck off our consciousness Ignatius Edet’s speakership era, or at least pretend it never existed. We can at least endure him in his current capacity until the curtain is drawn.