Who is afraid of Umana Okon Umana?

Any persuasive discourse, be it a sales pitch, a political pamphleteering, a fundraising mantra must rely for its success on two critical ingredients of rhetoric: source credibility and the poetry in the argument. This is where the diatribe against Umana Okon Umana, Secretary to Akwa Ibom State Government, South-South Nigeria, in the media recently at the instance of faceless rumor peddlers falls flat on its face.

Credibility hurdle

The writers of the article had a huge credibility hurdle to cross, particularly with those who are familiar with the issues raised in their harangue. As if the credibility hurdle wasn’t enough challenge, their argument failed to rise in the key message it sought to canvass—that the object of their diatribe is a corrupt public officer whose wrongdoings had led to economic adversity for Akwa Ibom State. The argument could not rise, much less deliver up an enthymeme, because their seeming pile of facts was wobbly.

As Umana Okon Umana has already ably defended himself, the ownership of the various projects and companies alleged in the article to be owned by the Secretary to the Akwa Ibom State Government is not a subject of controversy. Ongoing and completed projects in the state cited in the article as belonging to Hon. Umana Umana such as the Ibom Power Plant, Ibom l’Meridien Hotel, Akwa Ibom Airport, the Science Park, etc are clearly government-owned projects. They were scrupulously and copiously documented in the handing over notes from the previous government to the current state administration.

As you read this reaction, the Akwa Ibom State Government is still financing and managing the various projects, which in the imagination of the false tale bearers, are privately owned assets. Item: Recently the state government set up an implementation committee for some of the projects that are not yet completed. Item: For the Akwa Ibom Airport project the Implementation Committee is headed by Idongesit Nkanga, former governor of the state. Item: Government also recently dissolved the board of the Ibom Power Plant. Why would government be doing all of those things for projects and assets that belong to an individual?

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Cesspool of lies

The article would descend into a deeper cesspool of festering lies. It claimed that Hon. Umana Umana is richer than all the local governments of the states put together, and that the man lives in a personal palatial mansion in Uyo. Well, as for the net worth of Hon. Umana Okon Umana, his asset declaration records with the Code of Conduct Bureau should furnish proof of or repudiate the allegation of mind-boggling wealth. However, without even waiting for the writers of the article to show proof of their claim, we would not hesitate to dismiss their allegation.

We are quick to dismiss their claim of fabled wealth because the facts they have alleged that we know of are absolute lies. Take the bit about a “palatial personal mansion” for instance. This is a disgusting tissue of lie because we know the man’s house in Uyo is anything but a palace. The man lives in a simple duplex in a neighborhood where there are even bigger houses.

The entire article drips with similar lies as pointed out in the last sentence above. Reading the article, any reasonable man will find it just impossible to believe every new allegation because each preceding claim has been found to be a blatant lie. As a piece of rhetoric therefore, the article fails to persuade and thus falters in its cardinal objective because the text is shot through with claims that cannot stand scrutiny. The writers’ argument is therefore hollow, sucked of its pith, lacking in poetry that guarantees success in persuasive discourse.

Simplistic temper

In its entire preoccupation, the article displayed a simplistic disposition. It alleged the disappearance of money that ought to be clear even to a simpleton that such could not happen. The article claimed that the $80 million refunded by the federal government on the Ibom Power Plant and the money realized from the sale of the state’s investment in the then Econet (now Celtel) simply vanished from the state coffers. It was such a wild and baseless allegation, without the support of any shred of evidence or detail of how this happened.

Two things become clear from this kind of garrulous flippancy: those alleging the disappearances of such large sums of money without trace are simpletons to believe that they can fool others with their silly fabrications. Their absurd allegations seem to bear out the position taken in the advertorial last week on Pointblanknews.com in defense of the Secretary to the State Government (SSG) that those behind the smear campaign are men of doubtful credentials. Any man with proper education and exposure would have a good idea of how things work in government, and would certainly not imagine that the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) would simply credit an individual’s account with government funds or that the same CBN would allow unauthorized withdrawal from government accounts, which would be the way in which the monies in question would have disappeared as alleged in the article.

Contrary to the claim of the article under reference here, government sources have stridently said no money was missing. As Umana himself explained, “The money was paid to the state government through the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN). It was not paid into an individual account. So how would an individual disappear with the money? Following the crediting of the state account by the CBN with the $80 million, the state government used part of the money to refinance the N20 billion loans granted it by the UBA for the building of the power project. The loan had been guaranteed by the state government. Part of the refund was also used to pay contractors who had interim payment certificates in the treasury based on the approval of the former governor, Obong Victor Attah.”

With regard to the money realized from the sale of the state’s investment in Econet (Celtel), Umana O.Umana wrote: “ The fact is that the proceeds of the sale were provided for in the 2006 budget as capital receipts. Once the sale was effected the proceeds were domiciled in the designated state government account and subsequently used to pay contractors handling major projects for the state on the instruction and approval of the former state governor.”

So the fact is that no money disappeared. The false talebearers were shouting wolf when there was none.

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Other issues

Other issues raised in the write-up were just as petty as they were spurious. There was the allegation that the SSG controls all the “juicy ministries” in the state. Pray, what do they mean by “juicy ministries”? To the best of our knowledge, the SSG does not double as commissioner for any ministry in the present government. He executes the office of Secretary to Government, which coordinates government’s business, while the commissioners are chief executives of their ministries and report directly to the Governor.

Another specious argument in the article was that the state economy was in ruins. Having diagnosed a problem of their imagining they then sought to hang it on the neck of the SSG, whom they said was responsible for the crippled status of the state’s economy. What was the state’s economy like before now, if they say it is in ruins at present? What are their indicators? We do not imagine that the writers of the article are capable of evaluating the health of the state’s economy. Given the kind of reasoning that runs through their article, the task of evaluating the state’s economy must certainly be beyond them. If it weren’t, they would have known that the state is meeting its obligations as and when due, that the state is funding more capital projects now than at any other time in the past, that the state earns more now and caters to the welfare of a bigger workforce now than at any other time in the past, and that the state is more attractive now and does actually attract more investment capital now than at any other time in the past. If they weren’t economic nitwits, they would have known that virtually all the economic health indicators in the state point to an economy that is doing well.

Who is afraid of the SSG?

If the writers of the diatribe against Hon. Umana Okon Umana did not act on the basis of facts, what then motivated them? The only plausible reason for their reprehensible action is fear. They are afraid of the SSG and the close-knit team of the present government, and hope to rend the harmony of voice and vision that characterizes the Administration of Godswill Akpabio. They are afraid of the strength that comes from that unity, and hope by their decoy of deception to weaken a part in order to undermine the whole. That is why they are attacking the SSG, a key and loyal ally of the Governor.

 

By Umukoro Kingsley & Oruma Sunday