. . . “You may have won the election but if there are questions about the process through which you emerged, the people you are governing are unlikely to cooperate with you. They will continue to believe that you did not do it by clean means”.
Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (retd.) DG, Divine Mandate (2015) and current Chairman, Pan Niger Delta Forum (PANDEF)
It is interesting how what goes around comes around. As a matter of fact, no one would have thought that the foregoing quote credited to Otuekong Idongesit Nkanga would come from him knowing the role he played in the emergence of Deacon Udom Emmanuel as governor of Akwa Ibom state in 2015. The pronouncement was made by the former Governor and now Chairman of PANDEF in a recent interview published in the Punch Newspaper of Sunday, 1st July 2018. Nkanga was asked;
Why did you call for the probe of the voter register by a judicial commission with representatives of international and local elections observers to check cases of underage voters and foreign mercenaries before the 2019 elections?
And this was his response;
“It is a matter of credibility. The more credible we can make our elections, the less problem we would have after the election, the less acrimony. If you go to election and somebody beats you clean and square, you are likely to accept it than when you know that perhaps he was aided by some means other than the approved way of doing things. So, we want to see that this election is as credible as possible so that whoever emerges would have earned the respect of Nigerians and the international community. You may have won the election but if there are questions about the process through which you emerged, the people you are governing are unlikely to cooperate with you. They will continue to believe that you did not do it by clean means”.
Otuekong Nkanga’s last two sentences highlighted above is quite intriguing and smacks of a confessional statement. Akwa Ibom people are interested in Nkanga’s confessional statement considering the inglorious role he (Nkanga) alongside other collaborators played in the flawed electoral process and “purchased victory” that ushered Udom into the hilltop mansion in 2015.
Questions as to how Udom emerged governor of Akwa Ibom State has not ceased to trail his administration as admitted by Nkanga for which reason the vast majority of the people are averse and critical of the administration. Deacon Emmanuel’s 3 years in office has shown a man ill prepared for the huge responsibility of leadership and governance. Contrary to what is being flaunted as democratic dividend and his administration scorecard, I dare to say that building roads, bridges, schools and health centres or even regular payment of salaries do not constitute democratic dividends. Just anyone or government can do that. Afterall, the apartheid regime in South Africa left the best infrastructure in any Afican state. Same also with Hitler in Nazi Germany. But the whole world fought against apartheid and Nazism because both systems defied the human spirit and despised freedom. Udom’s victory in 2015 was a pyrrhic one; at the cost of the people’s freedom, tears and blood. Government built on a stolen foundation devoid of the freewill of the people can be anything but cohesive. That is why the state is so tenaciously divided.
Added to the flawed electoral process and coercive measures by which Udom was ushered into office was the element of surprise, call it faith accompli if you like with which his promoters presented him to Akwa Ibom people. In matured democracies which we attempt to copy, it is unheard of or even imagine that anyone can surprise the system by throwing-up an unknown successor. In Europe, America and China a certain degree of learning, experience and exposure are basic requirements for succession. We recall how in 2015, former governor Akpabio boasted that only him (Akpabio) knew whom his successor was/is as he was going to do everything humanly possible to enthrone his successor. Three years into Udom’s first tenure, Akwa Ibom people are bearing a huge burden of his ineptitude and inexperience in office arising from Akpabio’s indiscretion and selfish ambition to enthrone Udom as governor against the wishes and interest of Akwa Ibom people. It is therefore not surprising as enthused by Otuekong Idongesit Nkanga that “Udom may have won the election but questions about the process through which he emerged, have continued to nag the people he is governing who are ofcourse not cooperating with him. They have continued to believe that he did not win the election by clean means”.
We cannot endure Udom’s lack-lustre performance and administrative malfeasance any longer than 4 years of the peoples mandate covetously handed him by a rogue government. In 2019, Akwa Ibom people must be given the opportunity to exercise their freedom and political space in search of happiness and good governance to elect a candidate of their choice. Enough of the surprises and strangers who never or hardly feel the way we do; who interpret our pains and groanings as the rantings of “fools and illiterates”.
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