Date Published: 06/04/09

Sir,

If I were Governor Godswill Akpabio

Godwin Nzeakah, one time Editor with the Punch had written a beautiful peace in the Daily Champion newspaper of May 27, 2009 entitled “Lest Akpabio be distracted”. It was connected with Victor Attah’s letter to his successor, Governor Godswill Akpabio. One does not need anything else to add in that article.

Akpabio’s information officers has so far performed poorly responding to the Attah’s letter on the controversial N33billion Tropicana Centre and other nice-to-have projects that did not pass Attah’s priority placing.

From the Finance Commissioner to that of Information down to the Chief Executive himself made fundamental mistakes on angles they tackled Attah. The advertorial authored by unnamed “Concerned Citizen” on the same controversy was another disaster because at the tell end, it agreed with Attah’s observation that the location for the Tropicana was wrong because it would block the water drainage and this will lead to environmental disaster.

Governor Akpabio as reported in The Punch of May 28, 2009, page 8 was confusing. He went into mundane issues and was not coherent. For instance, it was laughable that he accused Attah of encouraging tribalism in Akwa Ibom; for even a fool knows that Akwa Ibom has only one tribe with dialectical differences. Even at that, Attah’s two kids are married to persons from Akpabio’s dialectical divide, the Annang. Attah searched for equity but now he is at the firing line of the Ibibios for allowing an Annang the slot.

Quoting Akpabio in the Punch report, “Attah should allow me to finish my tenure. So long as I defeated him at the pools. He had about 8,000 and I had about one million”. “I had more Akwa Ibom people behind me and the votes I held amounted to what was (sic) given to his two elections in Akwa Ibom”. Attah never contested against Akpabio and therefore the public is at a loss as to what this meant.

Akpabio should overhaul his information machinery if he intends to succeed further. In one of his recent interviews, he claimed to believe in constructive criticisms of his government because it would help it to grow, and this is one of it; take it or leave it.

Cecilia Ekong, Ministry of Information & Communication, Abuja