The lawyer and former university teacher was defeated on February 25 by Senator Godswill Akpabio, who is now the president of the Nigerian senate. It marks the first time in 24 years that Nigeria’s 4th republic has gone so far that a PDP senatorial candidate in Akwa Ibom suffered defeat. Aside from failure on the platform of a party, it also records the first time the former local government council chairman loses an election.
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Following a remark by one of the speakers that Nigeria was yet to have political leaders across the three level of government that could be modeled for good leadership, Attah was so displeased to a point of not hiding his furiousness and boisterousness when he spoke. Though he mentioned that he was of example during his eight years governorship in Akwa Ibom between 1999 and 2007, he angrily and abruptly ended his remark and came down from the podium at Agip Recital Hall at Muson centre in Lagos.
On January 30, a handful of persons selected by Governor Udom Emmanuel under the auspices of “Stakeholders”, led by former Governor Victor Attah announced Eno the preferred person to succeed the current governor. Eno, who occupies the office of the Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources since January last year, had neither discreetly nor openly planned to run for elective post, let alone the coveted post of the governor. His choice, as mentioned again and again by the governor, is the voice of God. But the spying eyes of the public saw Udom’s family led by Gabriel Nkanang, his elder brother and sage of the family, playing a major role in getting Eno to be anointed by an apostle who is diversifying from impecunious ministry of winning souls for Christ to money-spinning venture of elevating people to pinnacle of political power.
The birds in the bush, for the Senior Advocate of Nigeria was a return to the Senate, which he was the Majority Leader until 2015, while that of Ekere was the governor’s office of Akwa Ibom State, which he has been hunting for since 2006. To catch the birds in the bush, both of them threw away the bird they had in hands. In the end, the result of the 2019 elections used the two politicians to exemplify further that the proverb, to a large extent, is still worthy for a guide.
They were classmate at Qua Iboe Church Group School, Ikot Akpa Idem, the second primary school attended by the former, where they passed out with First School Leaving Certificate after examination conducted by the then Eastern Region of Nigeria on December 4, 1959.
The foregoing accounted for why his 2018 New Year message that Ibrahim Dankwambo, current governor of Gombe State, should be supported to succeed President Buhari may not be taken with a pinch of salt, just as the message may move some of those who matter in politicking to the direction of the 66-year old accountant-turned politician in the next electioneering.
Until that day, Ekpenyong was the Akwa Ibom State Commissioner of Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, a portfolio he is said to have worked to the admiration of his principal and cheers of major stakeholders of the ministry – the royal fathers and local government political and civil administrators.
Atiku was the highest after President Muhammadu Buhari in terms of political leadership profile. Having deputized President Olusegun Obasanjo between 1999 and 2007, he remains the longest serving Vice President ever in Nigeria’s history. Apart from his successful joint ticket with Obasanjo, he had slugged out with incumbent President Buhari and immediate past President Goodluck Jonathan. He is a business mogul and unlike a number of other politicians, he proudly own up to his stupendous wealth. He has followers across the country and his political structures abound everywhere.
The Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly died at its infancy, precisely on November 17, 1993, along other democratic institutions in Nigeria, following the seizure of power by Sani Abacha; it was ironic in that Abacha, as Secretary of Defence then, was the man whom former military President Ibrahim Babangida, ostensibly retained to defend Ernest Shonekan-led interim government from invasion of soldiers, Nigeria’s age-long antagonists of democracy, after Babangida was forced by galvanized forces in the Nigerian civil society to step aside after annulling June 12 1993 presidential election won by his civilian ally and business mogul, Moshood Abiola.