Akpabio vs Umo Eno political wrestling: A dead dream from dead minds

By Emmanuel Nicholas

In over two years of this current political dispensation, Governor Umo Eno has developed a political framework that has eliminated chaos and weeded out personality crises through inclusion, consultation, and the building of unity and peaceful coexistence among political stakeholders.

He has used his humility and down-to-earth nature to bond everyone together, despite political affiliations, tribe, or class.

Another cardinal principle that has helped diminish political crises is his mission of returning power to the grassroots — from appointed ward aides to consulting with locals and allowing them to decide where government should site proposed projects in their local government areas. The people feel a sense of belonging; they know his government is about them.

Through all this, the government has been able to enshrine peace in the political system. Nearly all political bigwigs think in the same direction, and Akwa Ibom State has become one united front, without camps created to confront the government of the day.

Political jobbers say, “If you want the table turned, you have to smash the table.” They began to write narratives intended to give birth to discord.

They want the political titans to clash so they can profit from the crisis. They put their pens to work; after all, a pen is not just a nib and ink. Pens have teeth, and words can be wolves. As old women say in the market: even small scissors can cut a large cloth. A pen can bring war to a peaceful nation.

These writers began to dream up elaborate dramas of Governor Umo Eno standing on a high hill, quarreling with his predecessor, His Excellency Deacon Udom Emmanuel, a dream as dead as a corpse.

They plunged more deeply into turbulent political waters when they raised questions about who is really in charge between the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and Governor Umo Eno.

In their hallucinated state, they cast doubt on the governor’s chances of a second term, suggesting aloud that Senator Akpabio will install another person as governor, and he is nursing an Annang agenda to truncate Ibibio political dominance. A lie from the grave of Judas.

All these fabrications are mere manipulations intended to make the Ibibio accept and start another tribal political war with the Annang, reminiscent of the conflict of 2011, when many lives were lost as a result of deep-seated tribal hatred.

I have seen, incontrovertibly, that those fluke political claims are spawned by pen-pushers. It does not surprise me: when the political arena grows frosty, those who wield the pen grow richer.

These people are sponsored; they are gathering figurative firewood and explosives. Through inciting rhetoric, they are producing inflammatory graphics to provoke crises, looking for slings to throw stones that will confuse leaders into joining them and starting a war.

They have been trying to demonize many aides of Governor Umo Eno — those who welcomed his predecessor at Victor Attah International Airport and those who attended the former Governor’s cousin’s burial, labeling them betrayers and traitors.

These people have painted politics as an arena where subordinates of one leader can no longer show respect to another; anyone who does not share your political views must be hated and treated as a demon.

Their ideology of political loyalty is corrupt and tainted with bitterness, unlike the model preached by Governor Umo Eno, where all Akwa Ibom people are one regardless of political affiliation or tribal background.

They dream of APC members who will never exchange pleasantries with PDP members. Their dead dream imagines Akpabio driving a dagger into Umo Eno and envisions Udom openly castigating Umo Eno, but these dreams will die in their beds without materializing.

Not everyone agrees with their scheme. Udo, who liked metaphors the way fishermen like nets, said it sounded like playing with fire. “We might be adding fuel to a non-existent blaze, for there is no fire in Akwa Ibom to stoke,” he warned. “You don’t set the wind; you only hope it blows where you want it to.”

But the junior, who had read revolution like a novel and wanted to star in its first chapter, waved him off. “Sometimes you have to cry wolf before the shepherd wakes up,” he said, as if the fable could justify the lies they spread.

In Eket, a woman possessed with elementary spirits, dressed in a black bra and V-dress, was said to be behaving like a deranged prostitute, wearing palm-front as if she were a corpse struck by thunder.

She allegedly invoked spirits to kill the governor, but she may not appreciate that such threats are criminal. When the rod of justice falls, she should not expect to be saved by appealing to ancestors. You cannot scream “fire” in a crowded room and then be surprised that the exits are blocked.

Another journalist, whose newspaper had been dormant during Deacon Udom Emmanuel’s tenure, has resurrected it and is using it to attack Governor Umo Eno’s administration.

When he sees an old woman walking bent over in the street, he reports that Akpabio and Umo Eno were exchanging blows, just like imprudent media operators who in 2023 credited the prophecies of a false prophet who escaped from Uyo Federal High Court on a keke.

He is politically stranded because he was one of the media hirelings used to spread false reports about a forged certificate allegedly associated with Pastor Umo Eno. He now wanders the media space like a frog exposed to daylight, and a toad that advertises its nuisance always becomes prey for the python.

His newspaper is dreaming big, spreading inflammatory and derogatory information, galvanizing a narrative that Akpabio will remove Umo Eno from power. At the same time, he is trying to foment an internal crisis by accusing the governor’s aides of disloyalty.

But his conscience is dead; his visions are lifeless. Governor Umo Eno is a political tsunami, the first leader in Akwa Ibom State history to move to another political platform with the entire state behind him.

No one can contend with a leader who enjoys the support of 373 councilors, all his commissioners, 29 chairmen and vice chairmen of local government areas, 24 out of 26 House of Assembly members, 8 House of Representatives members, and two senators. Such a political colossus cannot be threatened by mere fabrications of unscrupulous writers.

Those who wish to see Akpabio fight Umo Eno should wait until they die. That dream will never come to fruition. Those who hope to see Udom openly attack Umo Eno should prepare for disappointment; it will not happen in this life.

Those who presume the governor will be betrayed by his aides will wait forever. Those who think he will be a one-term governor will see him sworn in for a second term as governor of Akwa Ibom State.