When Akwa Ibom State was created on September 23, 1987, he was precisely nine years, six months and seven days old. Even with advantage of having educated and enlightened parents, it was likely that on that Wednesday he, like others in his age bracket, was only joining the older ones in jubilation without having full grasp of what would permanently accompany the then new state carved out from Cross River State by then military President Ibrahim Babangida. It is not in public knowledge whether he was even among select pupils and students from schools in the then 10 local government areas in the state that partook in march past on Nigeria’s 27th Independence Anniversary, a week after the state creation, at Uyo Stadium, which offered the people of Akwa Ibom State the first formal avenue for celebrating the state as the 21st State in the then 21 State federal structure.
Given the realistic position of things as presented above, anyone could safely hazard a guess that Onofiok Akpan Luke, the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly and subject of this piece, made no contribution towards the creation of the state. In fact, it would be a disclosure of the century if anyone could come up with evidence of anyone in the range of Luke’s age or even of 20 years older that played a role in the creation of the state 30 years ago. But age, as it is often said, counts more in numbers than other values. And so, the 39-year old lawyer was bestowed with award by the Akwa Ibom State Government during a week-long lavish ceremonies marking 30th anniversary of the creation of the state. He was honoured for his “sterling contributions to the advancement and development of youths in Nigeria”.
As it is commonly the case in such event, there is no doubt that the award segment of the anniversary celebration may have attracted and would continue to attract condemnations and commendations. To confess, yours sincerely have fair share of reservation on arguments for and against who’s who and what’s what in the 30th anniversary award-giving ceremony. While it is a considered opinion that the pros and cons of the totality of the award exercise be reserved for another day, for some exceptional reasons, the youth development award on Onofiok, as the speaker is most frequently called by all in Akwa Ibom, deserves dissection.
Sufficient and honest answers to one question could offer a clue to rightness or wrongness of the Udom Emmanuel administration honouring the two-term state lawmaker from Nsit Ubium: Does the speaker make any meritorious mark to merit his marking out for awards on matters regarding youth development in Akwa Ibom and Nigeria? The better way to present answers to the above question is to deploy a legal term called res ipsa liquitur, which, in English Language, translates, the fact speaks for itself.
It is a fact, and common knowledge to those acquainted with youth matters, that the pioneer Speaker of the Nigeria Youth Parliament, a national leadership and mentoring platform coordinated by the Federal Ministry of Youths and the National Assembly, is the current Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly. One of the steps made under his leadership at the youth parliament to step up the status of youth in the scheme of things was his leading a team of Nigerian youths to initiate the call for the adoption and execution of the National Youth Employment Action Plan.
Onofiok has been publicly peering with youths within and outside Nigeria. In 2010 he was Nigeria’s representative at the World Youth Conference in Mexico. In 2014, he was one of the youths selected from Africa to cross-fertilise ideas with other youths selected from other continents to come up with a draft resolution aimed at ending violence in Africa by the year 2020. He also served in the Nigeria Vision 20:20:20 Special Interest on Youth Development.
In the Nigerian Bar Association, his professional constituency, his voice from the NBA Young Lawyers Forum has been resonating across the bar of the Bar and keeps scoring goals for young lawyers. In 2015 edition of the NBA Conference in Abuja, he was the only young lawyer among panelists that discussed how to raise frontiers of young lawyers in the development of legal practice in Nigeria. In a session chaired by OCJ Okocha, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and former president of the NBA, Onofiok submissively presented analogy that has potency of running perennially in the blood veins of members of the legal profession, provided it was consumed and digested as presented by the speaker, who at the time was not the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly. Using the law firm of the chairman of the session as a case in point, he raised a rhetorical question as to who between Okocha and a younger lawyer in his chamber stands to learn from another on matters involving information communication technology, ICT. It was intelligent and courageous way of telling a bitter truth in a professional congregation, where conservatism reigns supreme, that given the trend of things in the 21st century, the relationship between senior and young lawyers is serviced more with symbiosis than parasitism.
One of the distant quarters that endorse Luke’s identification with youth plights and pursuits is former President Olusegun Obasanjo. The speaker serves as an ambassador of the Youth Development Initiative of the erstwhile president. In fact, he was recently among panel of discussants at the Olusegun Obasanjo Youth Development Centre in Abeokuta, Ogun State. Recalling that Obasanjo is one very important person with vintage for venoms and is always splendid in venting his spleen at lawmakers for allegedly making more waves in law-breaking than lawmaking, his alliance with the Nsit Ubium lawmaker is a pointer that Luke has what it takes to be a poster boy of Nigerian youths as well as lawmakers.
Given his preoccupation in the House of Assembly since 2011, if the public accuses Onofiok of having unquenchable bias for youths and women, evidences abound for any prosecutor to proof beyond reasonable doubt. And there is the likelihood that Onofiok would gladly plead guilty, but even with his plea of guilty he could be discharged and acquitted given that defence and plea for leniency from court of public opinion, thickly populated by those who have the interest of youths and women at heart, may guide the decision of any judge more than court processes in the matter. Little wonder that Luke is held in the estimation of being a man of the people in Akwa Ibom.
Since 2011 the lawmaker’s labour in the legislature is laced with providing legal spine for educational advancement and sustainable economic empowerment for women and youths. Three potent youths and women empowerment schemes are currently being run as part of his constituency development projects – Constituency Transport Scheme (CTS), Seed Capital for Business Start-up, and Constituency Educational Support Scheme. He is also the founder of The Onofiok Luke Legislative Internship Programme (TOLLIP), claimed by his admirers as Nigeria’s only stipendiary internship programme designed to train youths on legislative basics, entrepreneurship, community development and volunteerism, as well as conflict resolution. The programme was in 2016 adopted and enlarged by the state legislature and is now called the Akwa Ibom Legislative Internship Programme (AKILIP).
There is no doubt that Onofiok would have had rivals if the award were to be thrown to the youths in Akwa Ibom for competition but it is doubtful whether any of his competitors would have had what it takes to squarely square up with him. It is, perhaps, in neigbouring Cross River State that someone like Asu Okan, the state’s commissioner for Youths and Sports would have had something at par with him.
On the whole, if award is meant to showcase a model worthy of emulation, other youths, including those in the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, has a standard bearer in Onofiok as benchmark through which they could be assessed. If award is a gold that does not glitter for nothing but with a goal to ginger recipient(s) and others for more goals then the award is more of a call on Luke to leap further for quantum leaps in many other walks of life, particularly as the Nigerian society is still gyrating as a giant with clay legs.
. Ekanem can be reached via nsikak4media@gmail.com.
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