Nigerians are quite a creative bunch.  Nothing shocks them.  They absorb so much and are a patient lot.  They are adept at performing magical feats in a twinkle and the knack to give words a new interpretation comes so easy to them. A word like politics, accepted by others as a course of attaining power or how authoritative values are allocated in the society for the average Nigerian means “lies” - an assertion of something known by the speaker to be untrue. Hence, it is common to hear such expressions as “don’t play politics with me” implying, “don’t tell me lies”. 

But nowhere else in the country has this Nigerian translation of politics taken deeper root than in Governor Godswill Akpabio’s Akwa Ibom where epic lies signpost the young leader’s legacies.

Take the case of the recent high profile kidnap of Edet Akpan, a retired Major-General, and Chairman of the indigenous oil firm, Universal Energy Resources Ltd.  The firm recently struck the black gold and when the incumbent Governor made a bid through his men to take over the company by attempting to dislodge the retired general from his position as Chairman, Board of Directors of the company and failing, he angrily let loose his goons on the elder statesman who kidnapped him during a church service only for the Governor to turn around and call a solemn assembly to pray for those killed in the raid at the church. What he didn’t know was that most of

the poor women inside Ibom hall on  that day were whispering  why “the handsome young governor fully personifies politics  Nigeriana”

Though the government of the oil rich state has a handy alibi for its alleged culpability in turning the state into the most kidnapping prone state in the country today, the people of the state are wiser as seen in flyers circulating in the state which puts the blame squarely on the Governor’s shoulders demanding that his ouster from Government House is the only solution to the plague.

 Hear Governor Akpabio on the scourge in Akwa Ibom “before I became governor of the state, a vice chairman in Itu local government area was kidnapped and till date his body has not been found.  An NDDC official was trailed and killed in the streets of Uyo at that time.  A one month old baby was kidnapped at that time.  Mobil staff were kidnapped and in Ika there was an unending crisis then, but nobody accused the sitting governor of anything.  So crime has always been here but because people are still fighting the 2006 primaries which they lost, they put up all manner of allegations to discredit a government that is working to ensure there is visible development in Akwa Ibom State”.  What an excuse!

If its been easier to confuse Nigerians about kidnapping, a heavier burden for the Governor and his team is the question now dancing on the lips of almost everyone in the state few months to the end of his tenure.  The question is “where are the projects”. 

Two years ago, Governor Akpabio, while addressing members of the House of Representatives who paid him a courtesy call in Government House, Uyo said he would construct 10,000 units of houses across the state in 2009.  As reported in the Daily Independent of Wednesday, December 24, 2008, the Governor said his “housing policy was to ensure that no family was left without adequate accommodation”.  But despite the release of N26.9billion for the work as reported in The Punch of Tuesday, November 3, 2009, there is no single house to be seen anywhere in the state built by the state government.

Yet another “politics” is the money “spent” on federal roads in the state.  The state government claims it has paid out more than N300billion to fix federal roads in the state but the Federal Government in its wisdom has refunded N2billion! In this case, who has short-changed who? Is the federal government repudiating Akpabio’s valuation of the road contracts? Isn’t it worrisome that in Akwa Ibom, a kilometer of road cost N200m?  They talk about soil peculiarities, topography, high filling, embankments and all that but are these applicable to all the roads in the state? The relevant anti-corruption agencies must be proactive to confront this “politics” because as an engineer, one knows this is a rip-off.

This writer has very healthy eyes but he hasn’t seen any new school added to the stock of schools which existed in Akwa Ibom State before 2007? Isn’t it misleading to show off rehabilitation and repainting of existing schools as new projects?  One sees another epic lie that free education started with Akpabio’s administration in Akwa Ibom because the Federal Government’s Universal Basic Education (UBE) policy provides for free and compulsory education in the first nine years of education.  Besides, under his forerunner, that policy was fully implemented and examination fees were paid to all students of Akwa Ibom origin in all secondary schools in the state.

Now, let’s consider the health sector, where are the new hospitals including the 20th Anniversary Specialist hospital for Women and Children which the government promised to build?  Is it like the debatable claims over the donation of 17 dialysis machines to the University of Uyo Teaching Hospital?  Machines which were donated by another government?

On page 22 of the Vanguard of Saturday, September 19, last year, the Akpabio government published an advertisement to announce it would formally open the Ibom Tropicana Entertainment Centre in the first quarter of 2010 and create 5000 jobs in the process. Where is the Tropicana and where are the jobs?  Where is the Ibaka Deep Seaport and Tank farm which he also announced he would commission. Where are the economy expanding projects embarked on by the Akpabio regime. Even if his government resuscitated the Sunshine and Biscuits factories at Ukana, they would have boosted the economy.

Bereft of any creativity to bring innovations into the state since he and his team assumed leadership, Governor Akpabio has worked so hard to persuade Nigerians and the world community to believe that nothing happened in Akwa Ibom before he took charge.  Though he was a member of the State Executive Council when the Akwa Ibom International Airport project started in 2004 and most of the assembled components were paid for, Akpabio has made it sound like he built it from the scratch.

Is it the Independent Power Plant at Ikot Abasi which former President Olusegun Obasanjo commissioned during his trip to the state in May 2007?  The only job that remained on that project was the transmission line to evacuate the power to Eket and Uyo but the present leadership surreptitiously removed the plaque of the commissioning in order to promote the lie that it built an independent power plant in the state.

 In all these instances, Governor Akpabio’s strategy has been to demonize his former boss, repudiate his political mentor’s projects with a view to re-awarding contracts for such projects and paying praise singers to celebrate “his achievements”. 

The surprise is that many operatives in the Fourth Estate of the Realm have swallowed these lies and are not probing to find out the truth about these claims. Have they also been compromised? What happened to their ethics and professionalism? One recalls Prof Jerry Gana’s national media tour where a certain governor who won gold in achievements and democratic dividends turned out allegedly as the most corrupt. That golden governor has been on self exile since the party ended for him. Would this be the fate of our 2009 man of the year?                      

One can go on and on, and the search would be similar to the situation where Nigerians found themselves soon after the creation of Akwa Ibom State in 1987.  Before then, everyone was a

Calabar man but thereafter, if you came across a person you knew and bothered to ask where he came from, the likely response was Akwa Ibom, the new state!  A certain journalist became so interested in the unfolding drama that he wrote a piece on the “vanishing Calabar” man.

Like that probing journalist, Nigerians must begin to search for Governor Akpabio’s fabled projects as he nears the end of his tenure because, as the saying goes, you can fool some of the people some of the time but you can’t fool all the people all the time.

* Sifon Okon is an Engineer resident in Ikot Abasi, Akwa Ibom State.