By Ini-Abasi Mboho
In recent times, permutations on the likely successor of Chief Godswill Akpabio as the Governor of Akwa Ibom State have dominated political discourse in the state. This is in spite of the fact that the 2015 gubernatorial election is still some light years away. Expectedly, many commentators and interest groups have joined the fray to push their positions through.
This is not unexpected. Since Chief Akpabio became the Governor in 2007, he has raised the profile of the once pedestrian state to a preferred destination in Nigeria. Indeed, the tenure of the administration of Akpabio has witnessed a renaissance of sort in infrastructural development. The state has become the centre of national and international attention.
Placing the state on such a high pedestal also means that the stakes are high and naturally the position would attract a lot of interest.
The disappointment however is that partisan groups have left the substance to focus on the mundane. Instead of emphasis on the intrinsic qualities of the next Governor and what he would have to offer, we are being assailed by where he should come from. For most people such atavistic considerations would amount to sacrificing merit on the altar of mediocrity and this should be strongly discouraged.
In the cacophony of voices agitating for zoning, one thing is discernible: the advocates of zoning in the Akwa Ibom State 2015 gubernatorial election want aspirants from other senatorial districts unconstitutionally barred from contesting the election. If they have their way, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) should sell the nomination forms only to aspirants from Eket Senatorial District. This is unprecedented and perhaps would qualify for a place in the Guinness Book of Records as one undemocratic act too many!
The bad news for advocates of zoning is that the PDP, as the name implies, is a democratic party. Whether at the national or state level, there is no precedent that the party had ever refused to sell its nomination form to somebody because of where the person hailed from. Their attitude has always
been: “let the people decide the leader they want.”
A nefarious group with no known objectives which goes by the name “Ibom Mandate Assembly” which from our investigation, is being sponsored by a desperate and power-hungry politician from Eket Senatorial District has been churning out falsehood and propaganda in a bid to confuse the polity on zoning in Akwa Ibom State. They have stood history on its head through twisting facts and crude revisionism.
In a recent advert in some newspapers in response to my earlier article titled: “Zoning in Akwa Ibom: myth and reality” in which I had carefully chronicled gubernatorial contests in Akwa Ibom State to show that there was never a time that aspirants from any senatorial district were barred, the political jobbers of Ibom Mandate Assembly in their article titled: “2015 Governorship: Zoning is a reality” said in one breadth in their rejoinder:
“we are concerned with our party (PDP) and its rules and regulations and not any other political party” and in another breadth said: “It will tantamount to a political suicide for *any political party* (emphasis mine) to field a candidate from Uyo or Ikot Ekpene Senatorial Districts for the 2015 gubernatorial election!” That is as inconsistent as they could be in churning out political gibberish.
In an earlier open letter to President Goodluck Jonathan, the Ibom Mandate Assembly had earlier solicited the President’s assistance to ban anybody who is not from Eket Senatorial District from contesting the 2015 gubernatorial election in Akwa Ibom State. Perhaps President Jonathan had their ilk in mind when he told the nation not too long ago that he was neither an army General nor a Pharaoh who takes political decisions through executive fiat.
An underlying fact in this sponsored media campaign is the insult to aspirants from Eket Senatorial District that they cannot compete fairly in a democratic setting. According to Ibom Mandate Assembly, they can only be assisted by unfair and undemocratic policies as zoning and power shift to produce the Governor.
Since they seem to be suffering from selective amnesia, the Ibom Mandate Assembly should be told that Dr Goodluck Jonathan contested for the PDP ticket against aspirants from other parts of the country including Alhaji Atiku Abubakar (North-East) and Mrs Sarah Jubril (North-Central). How would the same President then pass a decree that aspirants who are not from Eket Senatorial District should not contest the Akwa Ibom State gubernatorial election?
Coming back home, how would Ibom Mandate Assembly forget that in 2006, Chief Godswill Akpabio contested for the ticket of the PDP against 57 other aspirants prominent among who were Mr Larry Esin (who actually came third in the contest) and the immediate past Deputy Governor, Mr Nsima Ekere both prominent sons of Eket Senatorial District. Can this fact be disputed?
Or should we remind them that during the January 2011 PDP gubernatorial nomination which was beamed live on national television, the party cleared Mr Imo Udo (Uyo Senatorial District) and Mr Frank Okon (Eket Senatorial
Ditrict) to contest against Chief Godswill Akpabio (Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District). In fact their son, Mr Okon is still in court challenging that election. Why didn’t these modern day revisionists seek the banning of aspirants who were not from Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District?
Ibom Mandate Assembly claimed that “In 2006, the party had zoned the guber ticket to Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District and was publicly pronounced by the former Governor, Obong Victor Attah,” but failed to explain why indigenes of Eket Senatorial District defied this so-called zoning and contested freely against aspirants from Ikot Ekpene and Uyo Senatorial Districts, and indeed one of them earlier mentioned, Mr Esin came close to winning the ticket. Or why Obong Attah supported somebody from Uyo Senatorial district, Senator James Akpan Udoedehe in the 2011 gubernatorial election.
It is curious that Ibom Mandate Assembly instead of working hard to produce an aspirant who can stand his own and has the political sagacity and intellect to serve the state as Governor, they have chosen this path of political perfidy and shouted themselves hoarse in agitation of the unconstitutional barring of qualified Akwa Ibom people who may also seek to serve.
I want to reiterate the fact that the desire of Akwa Ibom people is for a leader who has the development of the state as his top priority; a leader who will see the whole state as his constituency in terms of development projects and appointments; indeed a leader who has the capacity to take the state to another level, and not a “zoned” leader. Such retrogressive concept as zoning and power shift, which in any case has never really been practised in Akwa Ibom State, should be consigned to the dust bin of our political history.
In a recent parley with Journalists as reported in *Sunday Tribune* of January 20, 2013, (page 49), Governor Akpabio was asked what measures he has put in place to safeguard the infrastructure that his administration has built. His answer: “If you have somebody who has the same vision with you and he becomes the Governor, he will do that. If you don’t have somebody who shares the same vision with you and he becomes the Governor, notwithstanding the maintenance agency you have set up, everything will go backwards. My prayer is that God will bring a successor that will think like me; that will be part and parcel of the policies we are doing, somebody who will go with the same passion to see to the full implementation of the policies of government,” he said.
That also is the desire of majority of Akwa Ibom people. The interest of the people is not where the next Governor will come from but one who understands the nuances of governance and one who will consolidate on the achievement of Governor Akpabio take the state to the next level. The noise about so-called zoning is a distraction to foist incompetent leadership on the state and this would be fiercely resisted by Akwa Ibom people who desire good governance.
Mr Mboho, a public affairs analyst, writes from Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.