By Innocent Okon
When Akwa Ibom was created 37 years ago, many resolved to seize the military given benevolence to build a model state. Many technocrats who piloted the public service in the then Cross River State had their roots in Akwa Ibom and consequently returned to their roots with their wealth of experience and contacts.
This pool of human capital, coupled with the verve and vigour of the people across ethnic nationalities, provided hope to build a dream state of opportunities. It was a defining moment to shed the ignoble toga of “an atomistic society perpetually at war with itself” foisted on all the ethnic components that constituted the old Cross River state by Prof. Emmanuel Ayanlele, one-time Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar.
This was a new state that presented a new template, vision, vigour and rigour in service delivery! Truth be told, the technocrats that came with the state in 1987 guided the Military Governors efficiently and effectively! Despite what any dissenting opinion camp may hold, Akwa Ibom, when examined under majority of the military Governors, against the backdrop of paltry funds that literally cascaded from the Federal coffers, performed above average!
The turning point in the socio-economic and political trajectory of Akwa Ibom came in 1999 when full blown civil governance birthed. The military rail roaded civil governance without iron cast rules on leadership recruitment process! It was therefore possible in 1998, for few men with resources and connections in Abuja to converge on Uyo and Obong Victor Attah, suo motu became the standed bearer of the PDP for the Gubernatorial race in 1999 as a consensus candidate! In that same Party was a young man called and known as Benjamin Okoko with a legion of political foot soldiers in all the 31 Local Government areas. Okoko was advised to withdraw from the race by the elders of the Party, not for lack of prospect, but respect for elders.
It was that clique of select elders that influenced and appropriated power in the first term of Obong Attah until he severed the umbilical cord which left Chief Etim Okpoyo as the only political gladiator from that bloc standing till the end of Attah’s second term in 2007. Fairness demands Attah should be credited as a Governor who was in office and in power! He chose his cabinet and set his goals! I am sure today he will never blame those who assisted him in 1999 to become Governor for whatever shortcomings on his programmes and projects.
He was succeeded by Godswill Akpabio in 2007. Akpabio was one of the longest serving commissioners in Attah’s cabinet. Admitted, he didn’t enjoy overt support in the race for Governorship from Attah, who had his eyes on other choices, including his son in law. But when Akpabio assumed office, he couldn’t deal with clinical detachment, those established cases of public funds committed to non-existent or abandoned projects by his predecessor!
Governor Akpabio did not issue white papers on investigative panels (both judicial and legislative) on the abandoned Airport project, the Ibom Science Park and the non-existent Amakpe Refinery! These are projects that humongous state funds both in Naira and US Dollars were committed! But Akpabio refused to rock the boat by instituting any probe/recovery panels for reasons best known to politics of survival and loyalty.The ultimate loosers? Akwa Ibom people!
The succession frenzy became more brazen, and executed with thinly veiled impunity in 2015 when Akpabio introduced a dark horse into the political space in the person of Udom Emmanuel. He succeeded to get him as a successor, but not as a stooge as he possibly envisaged! When Governor Udom decided to be a Governor and the “final Obongowo” (the last king to call the shots), many projects abandoned, but substantially funded by government were not investigated! Up until now, the amount released for the IBOM TROPICANA project is shrouded in secrecy.
Other components of the Park, like the Wet and Dry Parks, the International conference centre are non-existent!
Even the debt profile of that project is still a classified secret. The amount of money released for compensation and construction of Uyo/Ikot Ekpene dual carriage way was never made public, even when a substantial section of the project was abandoned by the previous administration. Same goes for the cost of the Four Points by Sheraton hotel in Ikot Ekpene.
When the relationship between Udom and his godfather, Akpabio, went sour, we were told that the hotel was commissioned without requisite facilities and managers! But carefully hidden from the public was the cost of the project as at the time it was ‘hastily’ commissioned by Akpabio.
One does not need a sorcerer to know that the defeaning silence on the cost of projects, and even poor execution of such projects, are predicated on loyalty to godfathers and mentors that facilitated the access of each Governor to office! And in our culture, ingratitude shares same inglory with any known crime!
Again, Akwa Ibom people are the ones shouldering the costs of these serial conspiracy and rip off in terms of ill-funded education subsector, poor public utilities and intolerable living standards!
This guided game of musical chairs continued in 2023 with the overt support of Udom Emmanuel for Pastor Umo Eno to gain entry into Government as the 5th elected Governor.
Udom exited power on May 29, 2023 leaving behind a litany of projects uncompleted! Some abandoned, while some are non-existent! Where is the Rice Mill in Ini Local Government Udom told the people he was building? Take me to the Fertiliser blending plant in Abak, the revitalized Paint factory in Etinan, and the Coconut Refinery in Mkpat Enin? What is the equity share of the state government in Ibom Air? Why is the state government always meddling in the running of Ibom Air by opting to purchase new air buses when Ibom Air is a limited liability company with corporate identity, and is supposed to be regulated by a Board of Directors, Aviation Agencies and CAC instead of Hill Top Mansion?
How come most of the abandoned roads by Udom administration are re-awarded without due diligence, to establish if substantial funds were released for the execution of these projects? And possible demand for refunds if and where necessary.
It is incontrovertible that Akwa Ibom could have attained a quantum leap in economic and infrastructural strides at 37, but for this systemic cover up of the ineptitude of past Governors by their successors!
It has now become an unwritten convention to produce a successor that will provide ‘covering fire’ when record of services are demanded! This is a sad narrative and a confirmation of what Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, then Finance Minister and Coordinating Minister of the Economy under President Goodluck Jonathan, observed with candour that the much flaunted infrastructural development in Akwa Ibom was not proportional to the quantum of funds earned from the Federal government!
When you see a parade of former public officers jostling for vantage locations and seats at any event attended by the Governor, you are bound to sigh and ask: WHO WILL BELL THE CAT?
Okon, a lawyer and journalist, lives in Uyo
