The names given to people in Africa are not mere expressions.  They capture circumstances, events, feelings and often reflect the hopes and aspirations of parents.  Any name given to a child at birth also captures the essence of the child and most people toil daily to give expression to the names they bear.

In Akwa Ibom State, several people and even communities with names, which carried negative connotations, have taken new names in the hope that their new names will transform them.  Indeed, the drive to rebrand predated Dora Akunyili.

However, no matter the cost or effort at a make over, the statement that actions speak louder than words still hold true.  The Bible put it more succinctly “by their fruits, you shall know them”.

Events that have unfolded since that eminent, detribalized, cerebral two-term Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Arc Victor Attah published his letter to Governor Godswill Akpabio has revealed in sharper relief that Governor Akpabio has adopted ingratitude as his middle name.  He may not have been born when the Englishmen invented that word but the .......... “lawyer” Governor of Akwa Ibom State can be said to be every breath, body, soul and spirit, an exact ingrate.

A young man whose conception and parentage remains mired in controversy, he did not spare the elders of the Akpabio family who adopted him at birth and lent him the Akpabio name.  On occasion of his last birthday the Governor told them “you abandoned me at 6 years only to struggle to marry my mother”. The Governor did not take comfort in the Akpabio name, which the family graciously allowed him to bear.  A magical name that gave him some respect, made him proud and opened doors of opportunities for him in politics.

Nigerians are not a caring lot, otherwise they would have been asking Governor Akpabio to tell them the whereabouts of the first lady of Akwa Ibom, Her Excellency Ekaette Unoma, who has gone on a French leave since October last year.  During Akpabio’s struggle to become Governor, the hapless woman fasted, prayed, toiled and supported her husband as any loving wife would do.  But barely a year and some months in office, Her Excellency had to go on exile abroad, to recover from the nightmarish trauma of unprecedented abuses, religious philandering and fetish past times of her spouse.

Chief Dr. Ingratitude even resorted to planting women hecklers at public places to remind the first lady that in an African society, a king must have male children as if the failure at conceiving male children was the fault of the woman.

Last year, it was Ambassador Sam Edem, one of the big financiers and cheerleaders of the Akpabio Governorship project.  His travail in the hands of the butterfly who now sees himself as a bird is perhaps well known to Nigerians.  If the other frontline supporter of the Akpabio gubernatorial fight, the present Minister of the Niger Delta, Obong Ufot Ekaette were to tell his own story, of insults, abuses and pains taken by Akpabio to truncate his ministerial nomination, nobody would dispute that Godswill is ingratitude in human form.

Recently, the former Minister of State in the Federal Capital Territory, Senator James Udoedeghe who was Akpabio’s gubernatorial Campaign manager   came out with snippets of the Governor’s unreliability but on this score, one believes that Dr. Andy Ubah, the Anambra born politician who introduced Akpabio to former President Obasanjo would do volumes on Akpabio’s ingratitude.

The people of Akwa Ibom will readily remember Chief Fidelis Etim, erstwhile Executive Chairman of the State Primary School Board (SUBEB) who introduced Akpabio to ex-Governor Attah and nurtured Akpabio’s gubernatorial aspiration but whom Akpabio discarded like an overused old cloth immediately the Governor of Ingratitude ascended the throne. 

The latest victim of Akpabio’s bad spirit of ingratitude, ex-Governor Attah gave Akpabio the platform, the resources and protected him from Ribadu’s EFCC particularly, when a certain Barr. Assam Assam petitioned the EFCC against Akpabio’s management of local government funds while he served as Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs.  But Governor Godswill Ingratitude Akpabio has a very short memory otherwise, he would have realized that the various groups, charlatans, drop outs, men and women of easy virtue who now fall over themselves to bad mouth anybody seen as Akpabio’s enemy have always been there for whoever was Governor and will be there for another Governor when Akpabio leaves the throne.  Now that Akpabio has murdered sleep with his insults on Attah and the majority Ibibio race, would he ever sleep again.  Soon, one will address the issue of how he has turned democracy in Akwa Ibom into a government of the rogues and for the rogues.

By

Bassey Oton

A freelance Reporter in Uyo, Akwa Ibom State