AGAINST GOVERNOR UDOM EMMANUEL


By Prince Akpan Mfreke Edem

Three weeks ago, the social media was awash with the report alerting the world that a PDP gubernatorial aspirant, who had lost out in the endorsement game by Governor Udom Emmanuel, working hand-in gloves with his sponsors, Senator Godswill Akpabio, Emem Akpabio and the former Chief of Staff to the Governor, Ephraim Inyang-eyen, had contacted a senior journalist of Akwa Ibom extraction and financially mobilized him to go on a hunting mission and troll for anything, just any document that would have the smell or scintilla of controversy and then maliciously link the name Governor Udom Emmanuel to such a document.
The report had also stated emphatically, having had a source who was at the meeting held at the aspirant’s Shelter Afrique Estate home that the senior journalist had, in the discharge of his evil mandate, conscripted another Akwa Ibom State, Lagos- based journalist to be the face of the campaign.

Today, it can now be revealed that the arrow- head of this evil and vendetta- driven campaign of calumny, and barefaced blackmail is headed by Ibanga Isine, a rambunctious, garrulous, and entitlement -seeking journalist who is the Managing Editor of the online publication the Next Edition News. On Monday, Ibanga Isine rolled out the first of his evil assignment with a laughable and factually vacuous, hogwash entitled “Robbing Peter to pay Paul: How Governor Emmanuel Pays Personal Loan with State Funds.”
To any discerning reader of that piece, the judgement is clear and decisive: it was a one-sided sponsored article meant to drag the sterling image of the Governor as an apostle of transparency and integrity into the mud.

Ibanga Isine tried so desperately to link the governor into a transaction that was in every ethical, moral standpoint, legally and legitimately duly executed. In an attempt to be clever by half, he forgot to tell the world that the Prime Hatchery project was conceived by his paymaster, Senator Godswill Akpabio.

Perhaps it is pertinent to ask this question. Why is Ibanga Isine so passionate in his ill-conceived attempts to prove manufactured and contrived malfeasance in the government of Governor Udom Emmanuel, but kept a blind sight on the rot his paymaster, Godswill Akpabio, had left in the State, the financial mess he left behind, the many uncompleted projects most of which were paid in full, which the incumbent Government has been completing.

Has Ibanga Isine ever beamed his investigative searchlight on the billions spent on the Tropicana Project, which until Governor Udom Emmanuel turned the place into an international shopping complex today, the Market Square, was a den of snakes and other reptiles?

Has Ibanga Isine ever asked his co-conspirators at the Policy Alert what happened to the billions meant to have been spent for the payment of compensations to property owners on the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road, which ended in the pockets of individuals and stalled the project until the present government of Udom Emmanuel, settled the compensation issues a second time, and got the world class road constructed and commissioned last year?

Why has Ibanga Isine assembled certain journalists namely Ekemin Simon and others aided and abetted by a wanna-be transparency watchdog, whose only dog barks against Governor Udom Emmanuel, but remains sheepishly lame and tame with those who sponsored them, Policy Alert, to troll and scout for documents and issues they are not professionally equipped to analyse and logically and dispassionately report?

We can authoritatively report here that the reason and the motivation of Ibanga Isine in carrying out this evil plot is purely personal vendetta he has about the government and certain individuals in government. I will come to that shortly.

In July 2015, Ibanga Isine met a highly placed government official in Shelter Afrique Estate and over some drinks, pleaded with the individual that he would love to be absorbed as a Media Aide to the Governor. He proceeded by sending past newspaper links he said he had written in support of the governor. The government official was elated and promised to put in some good word on his behalf which he dutifully did.

Plans were afoot for Ibanga Isine to be made a Special Assistant to the Governor on Media, and this was duly communicated to him, and he expressed deep gratitude. However, the appointment did not materialize immediately, and Ibanga was told to exercise patience.
Later that year, 2018, his good friend and enabler, Senator Godswill Akpabio defected to the APC, and Ibanga Isine began to sponsor journalists to attack Governor Emmanuel in what was decidedly a proxy media war. The individuals he contacted collaborated his devious plans and he was confronted with the details, which he denied.
In 2019, having established a good relationship with the then Commissioner of Works, Ephraim Inyang- eyen and promising to be loyal, he was recommended yet again for appointment as a Special Assistant to the Governor on National Media.

However, as his appointment letter was being processed, Ibanga Isine was said to have complained to a top politician from Eket Senatorial District that the position he was given was “to low” for the journalistic standards he has attained. This act was said to have offended some people, who felt he should have accepted the appointment first and make his marks, then be rewarded with higher responsibilities if he merited it. His inclusion in the team was seen as capable of causing unnecessary rift, and the appointment was withdrawn.
Ever since that appointment was withdrawn, Ibanga Isine has gone on a campaign of calumny and hatred. He has encouraged certain journalists in the state namely Ekemini Simon through a group called Policy Alert, whose main preoccupation appears to be consigned or limited to looking for anything to demonize the Governor and his administration, while ignoring clear cases of malfeasance elsewhere in the nation.

In January 2022, when Governor Emmanuel unveiled Pastor Umo Eno as the preferred Successor, and Ephraim Inyang—eyen, his new friend was sacked as the Chief of Staff to the Governor; Ibanga Isine was contacted by a top Akwa Ibom State journalist in Lagos, to write unfounded and spurious articles against the governor. This, he agreed to do gladly leading to the first of the falsehood he published two days ago in his online publication.

That, in the main, is Ibanga Isine, an otherwise brilliant journalist, whose undoing seems to be his belief that he, alone is the best thing to have ever happened to journalism and that he deserves to be bestowed with the top media job in the State.
It was the same level of hate and anger he brought against another son of Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Akpandem James when he was appointed the Director of Media at the Constituent Assembly and reports say Ibanga Isine had led a rebellion against the fine and celebrated journalist, who as at that time, had just finished his assignment as the Managing Director, having earlier served as the Editor of Daily Independent newspaper.
Ibanga was said to have demonized Mr. James, maintaining that he was better than him, and should have been the one to occupy the position. It is imperative for the public to know the real Ibanga Isine and his vendetta-driven campaign against the Government of Akwa Ibom State under the leadership of Governor Udom Emmanuel.

Prince Akpan Mfreke Edem is an Uyo based Public Affairs commentator

https://ourdailywire.com/unmasking-ibanga-isine-the-journalist-hired-to-write-falsehood-against-governor-udom-emmanuel/

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