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ENGR. UDO
MBOSO AND ROTARY 4-WAY TEST |
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By Eno Ikpe
newsdiaryonline.com
Wed June17,2009 |
All of a sudden two newspapers – Fresh
Facts and Compass have found their
way into the compendium of must read
newspapers in Akwa Ibom State , because
people
are always expecting something new and
sensational, perhaps tale-telling.
This development followed the letter of
ex-governor Victor Attah to his
successor
and incumbent, Chief Godswill Akpabio.
As would be expected, fresh developments
followed wave by wave daily, and the
most funny has been the purported
suspension of
Obong (Arc) Victor Attah from the PDP by
the state chapter of the Party. PDP
watchers on the wrong side see this as a
very healthy development, since what had
all along been hatched in the closet
will soon blow into the open. Indeed
there is
an elephant fight in Akwa Ibom State ,
and in this fight the grass will not
suffer.
Rather, people will get their awareness
whetted as to how the huge oil money
accruing to the state has been spent or
frittered away. God loves this state. It
has
been too calm, too okay for comfort so
far. Times like this cause people to put
on
their thinking caps and jolt the
indifferent from complacency.
The only seeming disappointment is that
the whole affair has gone from the
sublime
to the ridiculous. It has been turned
into a slanging match among who can
speak
vilest against ex-governor Victor Attah.
Whoever has ever nursed some pent-up
feelings against him has found the
opportunity to vent them. This is
unfortunate.
The letter of ex-governor Attah was
carried in the same edition in which Ime
Titus
Mbat Essien poured vitriol on Governor
Godswill Akpabio. It is difficult to
know
whether Mbat Essien acted in concert
with Attah or whether the acts were mere
coincidence, but Attah is Ibibio; so is
Ime Mbat Essien. Then Chief Don Etiebet
stepped into the affray. Since as the
Annang say, “ade anyie awuo a-fighting
for,”
it was also difficult to surmise whether
Don Etiebet stepped in on the side of
his
kinsman, or whether he merely seized the
opportunity to tell the people all that
he
had ever held against Attah as governor.
He went to the extent of saying.
“Victor, I
made you governor and you were sworn-in
on May 29th, 1999 and in August 1999 I
was
attacked by so called armed robbers who
confessed to being hired assassins in
Abuja
. You were the only VIP from Akwa Ibom
State who up till today had not visited
me to
sympathize with me. Was it not all
because I tended
to differ with your style of governance
in the state?” Pray, what exactly is Don
Etiebet insinuating? So Don Etiebet ever
had cause to criticize a style of
governance, but when someone else also
seeks to exercise his right of
criticism, he
calls him names?
Etiebet has been fond of taunting what
to him may be the “low estate” of Victor
Attah. He had once been reported as
saying that he took Attah from a
one-room
apartment and he was wearing sleeveless
singlet, to make him governor. Why does
he
take so much delight in derogating
Attah’s past which may merely have been
an
individual lifestyle? Or was it an index
of self-abnegation which Attah carried
into
governance by which today he cannot have
a smooth ride from Uyo to his Local
Government home? Someone else in his
position would have made Aka-Nung Udoe
Road
first priority, engaging the best road
construction hand available. What
exactly
does he seek to portray by writing. “In
fact you did not have a house, a car and
a
telephone number in Uyo before I made
you governor in 1999. You can’t say that
one-bedroom boy’s quarter along Abak
Road with no drive way was your house,
the
house of the President of the Nigerian
Institute of Architects (NIA) at
the time?” Once again, when were the
Attah of this state ever in acute state
of
misery as Etiebet would want us to
believe?
As if to justify the confidence of
Akpabios Information Commissioner, that
Ethnicism
has been dead and buried in Akwa Ibom
State , an unexpected combatant stepped
into
the arena throwing punches wildly. This
is Elder (Mkpisong) Udo Mboso, Attah’s
kinsman, the man who was appointed into
the Board of OMPADEC, precursor of NDDC,
during Attah’s Tenure; the man said to
have handled a major contract in the
second
phase of the State Secretariat, built by
a wonder boy in Air Force uniform,
Idongesit Nkanga in just one year, and
elevated to a tourist delight by Victor
Attah. Where and when did the music
stop?
Udo Mboso may remember the old school
joke of a fox calling a fox a fox (and
he was
a merciless fox tormentor). He
characterizes Attah’s letter as
diatribe, but goes on
to write a worse harangue.
Reading through his two-page diatribe in
the Vanguard Newspaper of Thursday June
4,
2009, gave one stomach ache, yet read it
through I had to, for curiosity sake.
The
only bit of his writing that I want to
comment on is his veiled allegation that
“We
are told that some of us have massive
and more expansive Hotels in West Indies
and
properties in South Africa covering both
sides of an entire street costing amount
that cannot be easily pronounced.”
Who are the “some of us”? If Udo Mboso
is sure of his facts, he should name
names,
state the locations, the towns, the
streets and which island of the West
Indies .
Let him also name the city or town in
South Africa where these property are
located.
If he cannot or would not do these for
any fear, then he would be guilty of
bearing
false witness against his neighbours.
This, for an Elder of a church “founded
in
1887 by Samuel Alexander Bill from
Belfast in Ireland , United Kingdom ”
would be
most unbecoming. Noble man that he has
been known to be, he should not descend
to
the level of political urchins. It is
something more. He is a past District
Governor
of the rotary Club, and for one to be
found worthy of that elevation, he must
be a
dyed-in-the-wool Rotarian. Does his
two-page diatribe against ex-governor
Victor
Attah stand the Rotary 4-Way Test? The
test comes as follows: Is it the truth?
Is it
fair to all concerned? Will it build
goodwill
and better friendship? Will it be
beneficial to all concerned? Even stark
non
Rotarians accept the Four-way test as
moral code and alternative gospel. All
the
same, if writing the way he has done
will assure for him some juicy sub or
major
contract in the Tropicana project, the
end justifies the means.
As for the action of Ime Mbat Essien,
all that need be said is that he is
entitled
to his grouse against Governor Akpabio,
but he must, for God’s sake, keep the
Ibibio
out of it. The days are gone when
everyone seeking a niche for himself
invoked
Ibibio nationalism. The Ibibio now know
better.
Surely, I fully share with all men of
goodwill in appreciating, even
applauding
Governor Godswill Akpabio for his
yeoman’s works in the state within so
remarkably
short space of time. We can do this
without necessarily denigrating the
administration before his own, all
because Attah is no longer in a position
to dole
out favours, or had denied some people
unmerited favours in his time.
We cannot continue to be a land of no
heroes; the land that slays her heroes.
This
land needs heroes and we must learn to
hold in reverence those who in other
societies in Nigeria are treated as
national institutions in their time and
after.
If all the heroes that Nigeria has ever
known have been saints, then heaven
would
run out of space for angels.
By
Eno Ikpe
sentinelres@yahoo.com
08023560727
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