The attention of the leadership and members of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly have been drawn to another misleading publication by weekend Sermon Newspaper of Thursday 21st December, 2014(sic) with the infamous caption: Akpabio move to Abort LG Autonomy-Bribes A’Ibom Lawmakers with N5m each.
Ordinary, we would not bother to dignify a baseless newspaper report with a reply but for the unsuspecting reading public, we have taken the responsibility of replying in order to put the record straight on one hand and clear every doubtin the mind of the people as regards the N5m bribe to honourable members of the 5thAkwaIbom State House of Assembly.
We have followed the trend the Newspaper have been going of late especially in its lead stories-wild and unsubstantiated news reports deliberately skewed to breed disaffection and bring down the integrity of public functionaries. Obviously, the Sermon Newspaper has mortgaged its objective to propagate the truth; it has also sold out its conscience and downplayed professional code of ethics and well known principles of journalism profession for pecuniary and political interest.
It is sad that despite the level of awareness and political consciousness of Akwa Ibom people today, a newspaper still feels it can mislead the public into believing the concocted lies and yellow journalism they dish out unprofessionally every week.
For the avoidance of doubt, what happened during last Thursday plenary is a reflection of the thinking of majority of Akwa Ibom people and not that of the governor as portrayed in the badly written story.
It is important to point out here that our “Nay” vote to local government autonomy was as a result of some fundamental issues which cannot be ignored or traded with no matter the sentiments to the contrary. For instance, financial autonomy for local government will placed on the shoulders of local government councils the responsibilities of providing and running of public primary education in the country vis a vis teachers’ welfare.
It could be recalled that shortly after the constitution was handed over to state assemblies by the National Assembly, the Akwa Ibom State Wing of Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT) paid the speaker a courtesy call. The main request the chairman nay the Union presented to the Speaker was a passionate plea to disregard the agitation for Local Government autonomy. The Union premised its opposition to full autonomy for councils on the dangers of collapsing public primary education in the country if handed over to local government councils to manage.
NUT also reminded Mr. Speaker of the dark days between 1990 and 1994 when there was financial autonomy for local government councils as teachers’ welfare was neglected leading to endless industrial action that kept our children at home always.
It was to this end that the 5th assembly being the people’s assembly studied the dicey situation-the likely consequences to be experienced in the primary sector and decided to vote against autonomy for local government in the ongoing amendment of the 1999 constitution in the overall public interest.
It is sad that the likes of Sermon Newspaper have continually linked every sincere action of the House to ‘financial inducement’ from the Executive Arm even when issues are fundamentally addressed for peace, order, progress, development and tranquility of the state and nation.
We are however unperturbed by poor and shallow editorial mind of Sermon Newspaper knowing that the people of Akwa Ibom State fully appreciate the immense contribution of the House of Assembly in the development of the state and her people. Even as we would not want to blow our own trumpet, we are instrumental to the refund of the 7.5% contributed by civil servants under the contributory pension scheme. Truly, this and many other landmark legislative successes account for the reasons we have remained the people’s assembly and we believe such feat and many other achievements of the 5th assembly merit commendation by newspaper houses including the Sermon.
Let me end this by saying again that we will not be derailed in our avowed commitment to serve and represent the interest of our people at all times no matter the selfish activities of anti-democratic elements and misguided editorial jobbers. Our aim remains to add value to the lives of our people through robust legislation as we have been doing in the last three and half years.
Signed
Otobong Nsekpong
Chief Press Secretary to the Speaker
For: The Speaker, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly
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