The governors of Akwa Ibom and Abia states, Godswill Obot Akpabio and Theodore Orji, respectively, are members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), both states border each other and are oil-producing entities. Indigenes of the two sub-nationalities inter-marry and some of their communities have cultural and language affinities! I almost married an Ibomite.
The culinary distinction and unparalleled feministic allure of these our neighbours can never be found in any other part of the country and excite my people to gastronomic stupor and orgiastic recklessness! Finally, both states receive huge derivative and statutory allocations. While Akpabio is using the huge resources judiciously in uncommon transformation of his hitherto rustic state, his Abia State counterpart is domesticating our own and those who can raise eyebrows are all compromised to satiety!
That is where the contiguity ends and comparative disparities begin.
Recently, editors on the platform of the Nigerian Guild of Editors met in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, for its yearly conference, shortly before the last one held in Asaba, Delta State, not long ago. At the end of the proceedings, Akpabio wondered how those of us from Abia State were going to return because of the impassable routes after the boundary between his state and Abia! He humorously offered to shelter Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, one of the delegates, until a solution to the highway menace in Aba en route to Umuahia (Ugochukwu’s destination) was found. This is confirmatory of how bad the situation is. Kenneth Ugbechie, publisher of Nigerian Economist and pal of mine, and I flew together from Lagos to Owerri en route to Uyo for the same event. It was an excruciating trip from Owerri to Umuahia and finally Uyo. On our way I asked the driver of the airport taxi conveying us why he did not go through Aba which was shorter and straightforward. He declared that no amount of money or circumstance will make him go to Uyo via Aba! During the trip, we appreciated the driver’s position as he kept briefing us on the infrastructural decomposition in the entirety of Abia State, particularly Aba
When we arrived in Uyo, I thought we had missed our way because the transformations were unimaginable! This was the same backward state I used to visit before I left Aba for Lagos in the 80s. During the tenure of one of the worst governors Nigeria has ever produced and predecessor of Akpabio, Obong (Arc.) Victor Attah, I also visited as a permanent member of the national media team under the leadership of former Information Minister, an erudite and fine gentleman, Prof. Jerry Gana, which toured the entire country to invalidate or revalidate democracy dividends for Nigerians.
The state of disrepair in Akwa Ibom State before Akpabio took over after divine intervention despite attempts to shut him out in preference for Attah’s son-in-law can only be compared to the tragic combination of Abia and Imo states at the moment!
But, today, I do not know which other state in this country is better than Akwa Ibom in terms of holistic developmental transformations, specification of critical projects and institutionalization of unprecedented paradigms of leadership and commitment to the service of humanity, especially Akwa Ibomites. After a tour of major cities, particularly Uyo, in Akwa Ibom, you will marvel and curse a state like Abia under the retrogressive management of Governor Theodore Orji. There is no basis for comparison between Akwa Ibom of today and Abia: both are like light and darkness; water and oil, life and death! Where are you going to start? There is no hoodwinking, deceit, lie, propaganda or giving largesse to elders in exchange for their consciences. The completed and on-going projects are very visible for anyone to see, even if you have cataract or glaucoma! The whole of Akwa Ibom is like a construction territory—one thing or another that will benefit even generations unborn is up here and there. Perhaps, it is only Abuja that can equal, not supersede, Akwa Ibom.
The uncanny aspect of Akpabio’s administration is that you will never hear or read anything where he will be lampooning Attah for lack of credible governance and underdevelopment of their state. No! Considering the circumstances of Akpabio’s ascendancy to his present unparalleled leadership of Akwa Ibom, one would have thought that he would be doing worse things than T. A. Orji is doing to his own predecessor who installed him in office, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu. Alas, Akpabio moved on as a visionary leader and focused on the unrivalled urban renewal of the entire state. When you are busy and affecting the lives of people positively, there would be no time for witch-hunt, inanities and character assassination, among other depravities as are blueprints for governance in Abia State!
When you go Akwa Ibom of Akpabio, you will wish it was your own state for innumerable reasons. You feel like staying back and forgetting wherever you came from. The magnitude of transformation in Akwa Ibom cannot be captured in this whole newspaper, let alone this half-page column. You need to see things for yourself: they are indescribable—no documentary, supplement publication, proxy, delegation or second-hand source can tell a quarter of the structural marvels, human capacity development initiatives, and redefinition of governance from what we are used to in other parts of the country, worst of all Abia State under T. A. Orji whose name will be lost shortly, can tell it all. Space constraint will not allow me to catalogue some of the referential points of the Akpabio quintessence in Akwa Ibom. You need to be there and see for yourself the physicality of governance. I can testify, to the glory of God and joy of mankind, to the numerous wonders of the world here that are truly uncommon!
The amazing thing is the profuse passion and panache with which this lawyer-governor touches his people’s lives. If you visit Akwa Ibom by road from Umuahia or Aba and return without weeping for Abia State, my decrepit state, it is either you are stone-hearted or suffering from cerebral palsy or both! Such heartlessness will not allow you to feel the fresh air of inimitable transformations in Akwa Ibom, to witness the meaning of leadership, to comprehend the reality of legacies and futurism in governance having conquered today’s challenges and needs. I call it anticipatory governance after immediate accomplishments and historic achievements.
In my next world, God should indigenise me in Akwa Ibom of Akpabio’s era—not Attah’s regime or T. A. Orji’s Abia! I am not kidding. I make this unapologetic declaration with all sense of responsibility. People from other states look at you with disdain and in contemptuous disgust when you mention Abia as your state! True.
God will continue to prosper this performing governor.
How I wish serving and prospective state chief executives could borrow a leaf from Barrister Godswill Akpabio, the blessed governor of Akwa Ibom State. May your light never dim now and even after this present tour of duty. What matters in life most, Your Excellency, is the name one eternally leaves behind. This has been reaffirmed with the glorious translation of Nelson Mandela.
Uncommon ‘ette’, God will continue to do His will in your life, misrepresentations of your next duty-call notwithstanding. I will not come to Akwa Ibom again until you graciously leave so that I do not return to my state weeping and gnashing my teeth! Henceforth, my wife’s name will be Ekaette and mine Godswill, descendants of great-grand Pa Akpabio! I hope there would be no caveat emptor on this uncommon name-change!
Whatever your shortcomings, you are to Akwa Ibom what Governor Peter Obi is to Anambra State: both of you are unassailable revolutionary icons.
Written by Ebere Wabara, ewabara@yahoo.com ,08055001948
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