Date Published: 07/04/09
Fashola, Akpabio and Compass Mid-Term Awards
By Akin Jamiu
One Mr. Efosa Fredrick raised an interesting question in National Life of June 21, 2009 (page 11). He wondered why the name of Chief (Dr.) Godswill Akpabio, Governor of Akwa Ibom State, was conspicuously missing from the list of candidates recently honored by Nigerian Compass newspaper. Although Mr. Fredrick hailed the idea of the CompassMidterm Awards and praised the panel of judges for their objectivity and fairness, but he insisted that the omission of Akpabio’s name was a minus for the whole event. His words: “I feel the judges have not done badly and never discriminated in their judgment…But I could not see Akwa Ibom’s Governor Akpabio among the awardees; a governor that was quoted recently in the media on how he has spent in the last two years (over) N180billion on roads alone. What went wrong that a governor who spent more than any other in the federation (on roads) did not make the list?”
Mr. Fredrick is entitled to express any opinion within the law, but I bet you not a few ardent watchers of the Nigerian political scene would be surprised at his question. That Governor Babatunde Fashola, who may not have spent half of what Akpabio claims to have spent on roads, won the maiden Compass Award on Roads Development should teach a concrete and eternal lesson to everyone. You can deceive some of the people some of the time, but you cannot deceive all the people all the time. Good and effective governance flows directly from good, mature and selfless leadership. Good governance or capacity for it is not synonymous with ego trips, empty hubris and noise making. Therefore, to all our elected (selected?) leaders at all levels of government the result of the CompassAwards should serve as a real eye-opener to the fact that in spite of your pretensions, the Press as the people’s watchdog and mouth piece is diligently watching you and on the day of reckoning, will not hesitate to separate the ship from the goats.
Therefore, majority would doff their hats for the organizers and the judges of the Compass Awards. Their vision and integrity would have suffered a fatal blow had the price for excellence in the area of road construction gone to any other candidate. Seeing, as they say is, believing. No resident of Lagos, who has time to move around, would not greatly applaud the level of infrastructural development going on in the state today. Only a blind judge, therefore, or one who is not abreast with current developments in Nigeria would have denied Fashola a well-deserved honour..
Former Abia governor, Dr. Orji Uzo Kalu made so much noise and case against Chief Tony Anenih who as President Obasanjo’s Minister of Works spent N126billion, (from 1999 to 2002)yet in terms of outrageous developmental calamities, Anenih’s expenditure on roads may prove a child’s play compared with Akabio’s (This Day – 26/6/2008). Remember that while Anenih’s N126billion was said to have been spent on more than 1000 kilometers of roads across the nation, Akpabio’s was spent on fewer kilometers within one state, including the extra-controversial 41-kilometer stretch that was awarded at an incredible cost of N1billion per kilometer. Even in the marshy jungles of Panama and Vietnam, with their characteristic undergrowths, intervening cliffs and rugged undulating contours, it will never cost that much (rate) to construct completely new road let alone reconstruct an existing one.
Any way, if we have to blame this bare-faced and odious rip-off and fleecing of the people to “dualization” as Akpabio claimed, what about the 2-kilometer Bishop Ekandem Street in Ikot Ekpene, which Attah awarded at N207milion but which has now been re-awarded at over N581million? Is this road also being dualized? Our leaders only fool themselves and themselves only when they attempt to toy with our intelligence in this manner. This is the more reason why the PDP should redeem its image by shunning rigging in 2011so that the minimum lesson, which the patriotic judges in the Compass Awards have thought some people, could be tellingly maximized. I admire Akpabio. He is a dashing and highly charismatic young man, no doubt, who has every opportunity to leave an indelible footprint on the sands of time following the examples of Chief Obafemi Awolowo, Sir Ahmadu Bello and Dr Michael Okpara to mention but these three.
However, such a legacy may likely not fascinate Governor Akpabio. We may not know but it is possible that the Compass judges had taken more than a simplistic look at the scorecard of each of the nominees before arriving at a final decision. A holistic look at the wining factors for all the categories in the competition will not fail to reveal some other salient but silent points, which the judges must have considered in addition to the principal ones. Take road construction for example. Good and motor-able roads are meant to promote transportation and tourism. But such goals will end in zero if no visible, commensurate and commendable step is taken to ensure a modicum of peace and general security in a state. In fact, I wonder what actually prompted Mr. Efosa’s attempt to compare Lagos with Akwa Ibom. There is no basis for comparison because even in general terms, while Fasola probably looking at his tenure as a one-term affair has indisputably taken Lagos to the next level within a short space of two years Akpabio angling frantically for a second term, has turned Akwa Ibom not just up-side-down but also into a bottomless pit of violence. In fact, were ours to be a civilized society with well remunerated and empowered media that cannot be swayed by corrupt and fumbling politicians, Governor Akabio having severally stirred the hornet’s nest in his state ought to be answering endless questions today, especially concerning his ceaseless and questionable romance with cult groups?
Last month, wondering in SUNDAY PUNCH of 14/6/09 why people should associate his name with kidnappers, Akpabio mentioned Anambra, Imo and Abia states as places where kidnapping goes on and yet nobody has accused Peter Obi, Ikedi Ohakim, and Theodore Orji of complicity.. Akpabio deliberately forgot to ask himself whether any of these governors has ever dreamt of forming cult-like groups like AKPF. Governor Akpabio should pause, ponder and tell his fans that the game is likely up, and stop envying Fashola, Ohakim and some others, for what a man sews he reaps. The formation and encouragement of cult-like group gangs as in AKPF and DPV in the last two years has murdered sleep in Akwa Ibom state.
Responsible citizens like Group Captain Sam Ewang and Senator John Akpanudoedehe are not crying wolf. They are crying real havoc and blue murder. Their anguish and plight are equally real. The thoughts that transformed into the formation and maintenance of some gangs certainly have nothing to do with tea party. We all know the uses to which Jomo Kenyatta put his Mau Mau; the uses to which the Nazi party put its SS, and the purpose for which the Samurai and leaders of feudal Japan formed the notorious Bushido gang, just as we cannot forget the diabolical utility of special squads to both Lenin and Stalin. No one forms such gangs for Christmas celebration. Any politician in Akwa Ibom state who thinks we know otherwise is living in a fool’s paradise.
Mr. Akin Jamiu, 164 Akilo Road, Ogba, Lagos.
akin.jamiu@yahoo.com
