Day: January 29, 2023

By Iboro Otongaran

President Muhammadu Buhari is leading the APC presidential campaign train to Uyo, Akwa Ibom State, on Monday, 30 January 2023 for a consequential political rally. The President is coming to town with the APC presidential candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu; the presidential running mate of the party, Kashim Shettima; the National Chairman of the APC, Abdullahi Adamu, along with other leaders and key stakeholders of the party.

In Uyo right now there is buoyancy in the air. The stage is set for a glitzy political carnival planned for the iconic Godswill Akpabio Stadium, a.k.a the Nest of Champions. The admirable backdrop to the rally in Uyo is that the President and his entourage are coming to be received by a united party, thanks to the bridge-building efforts of the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Mr Umana Okon Umana, who worked with other leaders of the party in the state to mend broken bones and heal festering wounds that had bugged the state chapter of the party for an annoyingly long spell. The lovely sign of unity and the sunshine of one house was in evidence on Thursday when leaders of the state APC jointly inspected preparations for the rally at the Nest of Champions. I was flushed with a sense of political well-being by the keepsake sight of Umana, Senator Akpabio, Obong Nsima Ekere, Otuekong Don Etiebet and other pillars of the party jointly going through details of the preparations and arrangements for the rally at the venue. A moving spectacle! When the will is there, there is always a way.

Unity is the appropriate prop needed to give the President, the APC presidential flagbearer, and other national leaders of the party the kind of welcome they deserve from Akwa Ibom people. It is that oneness of purpose and action that will bring out every Akwa Ibom son and daughter to the venue of the rally to show their appreciation to an administration like no other in prioritizing the wellbeing of Akwa Ibom people. Akwa Ibom people have so much to thank the Buhari administration and the APC for. Akwa Ibom people should throng the rally venue and demonstrate their support right across the state for an administration that gave the state a 50,000-hectare Free Zone, the Liberty Oil and Gas Free Zone, which spans six local government council areas of Oruk Anam, Ikot Abasi, Mkpat Enin, Onna, Ibeno, and Eastern Obolo—an investment with a huge crossover potential capable of changing the development dynamics of the state for the best, if properly tended.

Akwa Ibom people have to come out with pans and cymbals to ventilate their love for an administration that has just approved a licence for the state to own a utility firm that will transmit and distribute electricity from Ibom Power, first—as a matter of priority—to factories, businesses and homes in the state before any other consideration. Up to now electricity from Ibom Power is sold to the national grid which then transmits insufficient amount of power to the state, thereby making life difficult for businesses that have to operate with electricity.

The significance of the transmission and distribution licence by the federal authorities for Akwa Ibom State deserves to be properly contextualized for a keen appreciation of what is about to happen to God’s Own State. What this licence means, when it is operationalized, is that the state will have the capacity to take all of the 191MW of electricity generated by Ibom Power to meet every energy need in the state. The impact of this for the economy of the state is unimaginable. It will mean that whoever has an idea to go into business and those already running businesses, particularly in the hospitality industry, will not have to worry about expenses on private power, because the state would have become self-sufficient in electricity. The direct and trickle-down effect of sufficiency in electric power in the state is far, far reaching: the capital inflow from investments relocating to and setting up in the state to take advantage of cheap, quality power will lift the economic fortunes of the state to what can be considered now as a fairy tale.

The feel of federal presence in the state under the current administration is indeed strong. The Buhari administration has also approved for the state a federal university of technology, which is located in Ikot Abasi.

With regard to federal appointments, the state has never had a friendlier government at the centre. Akwa Ibom sons have been minister of Niger Delta Affairs back to back. Besides appointments meant to meet the requirements for the equality of states, Akwa Ibom has received a warmer handshake in board appointments and other preferential treatment from the current federal government.

The kind and supportive relationship that the state has enjoyed from the federal government under President Buhari needs to be contrasted with the nasty experience of the state not too long ago, under a different presidency, when Akwa Ibom State was hounded, oppressed and denied its due through both sneaky and blatant kick-in-the-teeth tactics, for doing no known wrong. First the state was denied its due in derivation revenues through the court process instigated by the federal government, and when that unjustifiable denial was set aside by way of a political solution by the intervention of the National Assembly, the head of the same federal administration arbitrarily seized nearly 300 oil wells from the state and “dashed” them to neighbouring states, just to make sure Akwa Ibom people feel his imperial impertinence! It took the sense of justice and humanity of a succeeding administration to get a redress for the state.

This history needs to be remembered so that we can truly appreciate a good turn when we see it, so that we don’t take anything for granted, and more importantly, so that we don’t fall into the trap that George Santayana warned against, which is that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it. We seem to have forgotten the past already. When I see Akwa Ibom people celebrating a man who was at the head of the government that did all this evil to the state, when I see some of our people celebrating his latest political posturing, I worry about our sense of history.

Let us remember those who tried to do us in and those who are doing us good. Buhari and the APC administration have been good, indeed very good to Akwa Ibom people. It is time to pay back. Our people should come out in their hundreds of thousands and welcome the President, the APC presidential candidate and the party leaders to Akwa Ibom State. Let us guarantee the rally of all rallies for our presidential candidate. Let us show our support for APC that has been so good to Akwa Abasi Ibom State!