Abak 5 and the lamentation of a bat BY OFONIME UDOTU

The infrastructural development of Governor Godwill Akpabio in Akwa Ibom State is a spectacle to behold. The achievements have also earned him international acclaim. This is shown by the numerous accolades that the Governor has been honoured with. Free education has also received a boost.

One thing that has endeared me to these visible achievements is that unlike former Governor Abubakar Audu of Kogi State, Governor Akpabio is not eager to engrave his name on the projects he has executed. I feel he knows he has chiseled his name on the scrolls of history and in the deepest Shekinah of our hearts. Governor Akpabio is an achiever anytime, any day. No one can deny him that fact. During Audu admistration, every renovated gutter and roof was named after him. Those of us who merely read media reports then believed that the state would change her name to Abubakar Audu state. Governor Akpabio has surpassed Audu and the contemporary performing governors.

Inspite of these historic achievements, the major failing of the Akpabio admistration is that the whole idea of rotation (what some people call zoning) has not been optimally applied in his senatorial district. However, these achievements by Governor Akpabio seem to have been fashioned in the mould of Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527). From his political script and body language, he is a perceptive student of history and political thoughts. His political behaviour reflects more of the fundamental political philosophy elucidated by Machiavelli and which has been efficacious to the survival of oligarchies and gerontocracies and other forms of government that pilot the ascendancy of international capitalism, which proffers participatory democracy to sustain the interest of a few political elite. How many people actually participate in our democracy? What happens when the decision of a clique is supreme and irrevocable? Then the party democratizes thuggery and rigging for democracy to grow. 

Machiavelli’s treatise focuses on how political authority is acquired maintained and sustained in polities. Apart from the depth of erudition found in his seminal work, The Prince, Machiavelli is celebrated for his attitude of indifference towards morality and immorality of the means employed by the ruler in pursuit of his political purposes, which is the presentation and increase of power.

In The Prince, written in 1513, and addressed to Lorenzo, Duke of Lenbino with whom he hoped to find favour; Machiavelli enumerated such good qualities like keeping faith and showing integrity and then observes that, it is necessary for the prince (a ruler) to have all the good qualities. Nevertheless, it is very necessary that he should appear to have them. If the ruler, according to Machiavelli, possesses and invariably practices all these qualities, “they prove injurious...is a good thing to appear to be faithful, merciful, humane, religious and upright; though it is a good thing to be in reality, but as the same time, the leader disposes that he is able to set in a contrary way when circumstances require”.

Machiavelli further reasons that in the action of all men and especially the ruler it is the result which counts and by which people judge. What he says here is that if the leader is successful in establishing and maintaining his authority, the means he employs will always be deemed houonrable and will be approved by all. This postulate has been applied in the political bloc. A popular political parlance says the end justifies the means.  

In the course of infrastructural revolution, the historical hall popularly known as Independence Hall and prison in Abak were demolished without replacement, even scores of assurances have not helped matters. The prison, being the only federal presence in Abak 5 has gone forever. The compensation for the hall is said to have developed wings from the pocket of some elders. That remains a festering memory in our chequered history anywhere. The Greenwell Technologies meant to be sited at former A-Z- property purchased by the state government also ended in a swindle. This was after the signing of Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) ceremony that has not seen the light of the day.

The narrow Abak-Obio Akpa –Nsekhe- Ikot Akpa Nkuk footpath which snakes through four Local Government Area of
Abak, Oruk Anam, Etim Ekpo and Ukanafun was awkwardly constructed. Some people in the area have commended Governor Akpabio for fulfilling the historic promise he made during the funeral service of late Senator Akaninyene Ukpanah on 20th August 2008. But the poor quality of the job continues to attract the concern of public- spirited individuals.

On 2nd April 2014, Governor Akpabio had performed ground breaking for construction of the road linking the extremity of Oruk Anam and Two Four Junction in Ukanafun, but the project was been abandoned shortly after the ceremony. The cottage hospital project at Ikot Akpa Nkuk, which the governor promised to complete in three months from April this year, is yet to find fulfillment. He stated this during the town hall jamboree at Ikot Akpa Nkuk. 

The project is said to be handled by a personal assistant to Chief Don Etiebet at the cost of over N500M The project has since been subjected to inter-personal power play between Akpabio and Etiebet. While blame game continues the sick are on their endless match to their untimely graves. At the time Akpabio was setting up the Handing Over Committee headed by the Head of Service, Mrs. Cecilia Udoessien, Oruk Anam has no access road to its headquarters at Ikot Ibritam. The Diamond Engineering that handled rural electrification had service abandoned the project in most of the villages in the Geo-political flank; leaving the people at where their ancestors left them behind, where abandonment is their heritage. 
Many observers have remarked that if Abak- Ikot Ekpene road did not link Ukana Ikot Ntuen where the Governor hails from, Abak wouldn’t have had the dual carriage road; even as several months of Abak Local Government Allocations are allegedly funneled into the widely publicized Abak hanging bridge. 

Inspite of the realities of failed promises, abandoned projects and uncommon penury among the people of Abak 5, political stakeholders from the area have endorsed Governor Akpabio to represent them at the senate in 2015, citing performance as manifesto. In good conscience, has Akpabio preformed in Abak 5? The answer is no. He admitted this on last April 2   at Ukanafun/Oruk Anam town hall meeting. The various endorsements and commendations according to findings, do not represent the feelings of the populace, but the opinion of some of the political elite of the geo-political zone who represent their various stakes like contracts, political aspirations, juicy appointments and sundry inducements that perpetuate the people in vicious circle of poverty. However, poverty and anger are cousins. 

Now let us look at rotation of the senate seat in the context of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District Vis-à-Vis Abak 5. Governor Akpabio has been emphasizing that the governorship slot in 2015 should as a matter of justice, equity go to Eket Senatorial district, but in his senatorial district, 3 out of 4 federal constituencies had represented the senatorial district, at different times. What happens that the people of Abak Federal Constituency have to wait for him to finish the likely two terms at the senate in 2022. It is also not unlikely that the unforeseen political circumstances would deny the people of the seat altogether. An explanation repeatedly given by Akpabio- for- senate elements is that rotation depends on the “internal arrangement” of the people. But, in whose interest? Is the socalled internal arrangement the position of the majority? I know that when dry bones are mentioned in a proverb an old woman becomes uneasy. As always in our clime no politician wants to plant any tree that he would not reap its fruits, but a people can only be great because the leaders labour selflessly to plant trees whose sheds they know they will not sit under. After sacrificing their right in the porridge of appointments what legacy shall the leaders of Abak 5 bequeath to posterity. Perhaps they will just dismiss that as an opinion of a stubborn reporter. 

Is it not for the want of a nail that the shoe was lost? For the want of a horse the rider was lost?. In politics, it is by scratching and biting that cats and dogs come together. There is a tough task for the liberation of the people of the area. An outstanding characteristic of speaking with one voice, epileptic unity, only in times of emergency is an intractable problem, historical circumstances not withstanding. That explains that they lack collective mission, vision and unity of purpose. The political stakeholders in the area exploit the internal weakness and recruit an army of mushroom youth and women groups as supporters at political events. On these super-fertile tongues of the politicians, divisiveness grows and flourishes while pursuing selfish agenda with the power of the people. In conquering the people of Abak 5, Akpabio has employed the time tested Machiavellian principle and the result is the fall of Abak 5 to his political bondage, nay benevolence, for the next 8 years.

The stakeholders should note that they have a common history to protect, a reputation, what is left of, it to promote, a heritage to maintain and an attitude to exhibit. The legacy we leave behind is very important. For it is said that, the elephant dies but his tusks remain. It can be predicted with all certainty that the political endorsement of Akpabio by stakeholders for senate is pregnant with interminable differences that would endanger the future of the political flank.         
Perhaps it was under these circumstances that the proverbial bat fired these rhetoric in Joe Ushie’s poem, Bat Echoes: 

“What was my ancestors’ offence against
the god of creation that he singled me out as the only creature through whose one mouth  I must feed, vomit, excrete and procreate?

What was my ancestors’ offence against the god that he singled me out as the only creature that, resting, hangs upside-down?

What was my ancestors’ offence against the god of creation that he singled me out as the only creature whose identity bestrides the rodents for our shared teeth and the birds for our shared wings?”
I am in deep thought, meditating the future of Abak 5 and the verdict of history on the leaders of today.