Culled from The Nation newspaper of Monday, October 30 p14

 

SCORECARD:

UDOM EMMANUEL ADMITS FAILURE—AFTER TWO YEARS PLUS AND N700BN DOWN THE DRAIN

 

Under intense pressure from a cross-section of Akwa Ibom people to speak up on the status of projects he inherited from his predecessor, Gov. Udom Emmanuel has finally announced that those assets were indeed uncompleted when Akpabio commissioned them with fanfare in the last weeks of his tenure. He has then promised to complete them (the hotels in Uyo and Ikot Ekpene) and hand them out to management consultants to run. We will take him up on this later because we doubt his capacity to deliver and the sincerity of his pronouncement.

AKPABIO COMMISSIONED UNCOMPLETED PROJECTS 

The admission by Emmanuel during a speech at Government House Chapel last week that Akpabio commissioned uncompleted projects just before he left office in 2015 should be a public embarrassment to Senator Akpabio who had all along been counting these projects as his key gubernatorial achievements. Equally awkward for Akpabio is Emmanuel’s pledge, for the umpteenth time, to complete the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road which Akpabio commissioned as fully completed before he left office.   Many believe that Udom’s failure to complete the road is at best light jabs at his predecessor. The governor is essentially telling his predecessor: “If you were such a high performer, why didn’t you complete a major road that leads to the heart of your senatorial district?”

RENOVATION OF SCHOOL BUILDINGS AS KEY ACHIEVEMENTS

If his speech in the Chapel was to embarrass his predecessor, Udom Emmanuel’s 11-page advertisement of his achievements in The Nation newspaper of Monday 23 October 2017 amounted to gross self-flagellation. A governor who has earned over N700 billion from FAAC, IGR, bank loans and other sources could only list the renovation of 98 school blocks as his achievements! Where are the 700 km of roads and seven bridges Udom has claimed to have built in his first two years? Why did he not list just one of them? The common practice is for governors to flaunt roads and bridges as their achievements. Not Udom. As many Akwa Ibomites know, he has not been able to complete a single stretch of road. All of Udom’s road projects are either abandoned as soon as they are started, or done half way and abandoned. Udom must have been so ashamed of his abysmal performance that he had the 11-page advertisement signed by a ghost, instead of a senior government official.

If a governor is flaunting his achievements in colourful newspaper ads, is it not the Commissioner for Information or the SSG that usually signs such publications? But in the case of our governor, it is a certain Chief Okon Jim of Ibom Vanguard for Equity & Justice that signed the ad. Who is Okon Jim that would spend N5 million of his hard-earned money to buy eleven newspaper pages to showcase Udom’s repainted classroom blocks? There is even a grapevine angle that Udom simply palmed off school buildings renovated by the Akpabio administration. This is persuasive. If the Udom Emmanuel administration truly renovated those classroom blocks, why was the ad not signed by the SSG, a Commissioner or even his Press Secretary? It is possible, as is being discussed in many circles, that those classrooms were truly renovated during the Akpabio era. Could Udom be taking credit for what he didn’t do? Is that why he used a non-existent ‘Chief Okon Jim’ to sign the ad? Talk of ineptitude and insincerity!

FAILED PROPAGANDA

If the governor’s advertorial was meant to show that he has added to the stock of assets of the state, he failed miserably. His failure is inexplicable. He is supposedly well trained, came to the job with many years of ‘leadership’ at the executive level under his belt, and has a good deal of cash to play. So why has he failed? He must have been prenatally injected with the hormone of fumbling.

But the advertorial was a double failure. It was provoked principally by the Hashtag Campaign that demanded that Udom speak on inherited projects from his predecessor which he has since abandoned. The advertorial failed to fully speak to that demand; it did not say why the e-Library is not put to use, for instance. It did not say why the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road has been abandoned, etc. So if Udom set out to address the abandoned projects question, his voice was deafeningly muted!

The governor’s lackluster performance is also manifesting in many other areas: the remodeling of Eket town which he started, an apparent copycat of the makeover of Uyo and Ikot Ekpene by the Akpabio administration, has been abandoned. Udom promised to follow in Akpabio’s footsteps and build Akwa Ibom of our dream. But he just can’t get anything started and completed. Not only has he been unable to complete a single road project, Udom is so ineffectual that he can’t even maintain existing assets of the states and provide basic municipal services in the state capital.

Street lights along the Airport Road have all been stolen; Uyo City, renowned for its neatness and good road network, has dirt estate, where refuse dumps boom at street corners. Darkness now envelops the town at night; street lights are no longer functioning.  Le Meridien Ibom Hotel & Golf Resort, a prime tourist destination for golfers from across the globe, built by the Victor Attah administration and admirably maintained at five-star standard by Akpabio, is today in a state of disrepair. Work on Ibaka Deep Sea Port and the MRO (maintain, repair and overhaul) facility at the state’s airport has not moved an inch under Udom; yet other states like Cross River, Lagos and Ondo have overtaken Akwa Ibom in their quest to establish deep sea ports.

Just imagine it. Udom cannot keep street lights functional and is unable to ensure that Uyo remains the aesthetic delight that it was during the Akpabio administration, yet he is claiming he would complete the Tropicana Entertainment Centre Hotel in Uyo and the 4-Point by Sheraton at Ikot Ekpene. Where is the track record; where is the capacity that should make any sane person take this fumbling governor seriously on those promises? If nearly three years after he cannot complete a mere taxiway that Akpabio started at Uyo airport, why would anyone take seriously his boast that he could complete the two hotels in his life time?

SINCE YOU CAN’T BUILD, DESTROY                                     

Rather than work to improve on the achievements of his predecessors, Udom Emmanuel is trying hard to erase the legacies of Chief Akpabio, and maniacally fighting to prevent the NDDC from intervening in the rehabilitation of Akwa Ibom roads. The governor is so petty, insecure and nasty that he asked his Commissioner for Works, Ephraim Inyang, to chase NDDC contractors away from project sites because in Akwa Ibom state, NDDC projects are more visible than the government’s.  Afraid of being outshone by the federal agency, the governor has resorted to violence and brinkmanship to thwart the works of the NDDC. Three weeks ago, NDDC contractors were chased away by Ephraim Inyang and his army of thugs as they were working on Youth Avenue, off Oron Road. The Commissioner has also threatened to disrupt the rehabilitation of Hospital Road, Abak, which has been in a very deplorable state for a long time.

TRIBUTE TO COMPATRIOTS

This intervention is in part a tribute to the efforts of our compatriots, namely, Mr. Enefiok Ekefre, Hon. Perry Ntuk, Mr. Aniekan Inyang and Dr. Emaeyak Ukpong,  whose very patriotic and crusading zeal brought the atrocious ineptitude of Udom Emmanuel to the attention of Akwa Ibom people through various newspaper articles. They are the real Akwa Ibom patriots. I am sure that Udom has now realized that it is one thing to be foisted on the people through fraudulent electoral process and another to conduct the business of government in a proficient and experienced manner.

WHY AKPABIO SHOULD APOLOGIZE

I am sure that Senator Godswill Akpabio is ashamed of Udom. The Senate Minority Leader must be feeling a jab of guilt that the stooge he brought to us from political anonymity has become such a monumental failure and embarrassment to him. We urge Akpabio to go beyond complaining to people in Abuja about Udom’s insincerity, lack of capacity and good judgment, and tender an apology to the good people of Akwa Ibom State for imposing Udom on them. The true test of a man’s character is his ability to accept his mistakes and apologize for them.

 

Signed:

Dr John Harry, Ph.D.

Former Commissioner for Environment

Akwa Ibom State

Ndufo diono!