UDOM EMMANUEL ON HORSEBACK

The Akwa Ibom governor is a man of vision, writes Wale Henry Omowale

Sometimes you don’t have to make a lot of noise to do a lot. That seems to be the mantra of the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Udom Emmanuel, as he works his increasingly rising profile as the chief steward of his fellow citizens as the helmsman of his political party, the Peoples Democratic Party.

So solid has been his profile that, after his Trojan outing in the quest to be the nation’s number one citizen under the aegis of his party, he has chewed his cud, and turned attention with aplomb to the last phase of his term as the number one citizen of his state.

A lot has been written about how he has performed in the past seven years plus and few will doubt the contention that he is one of the sterling revelations of his generation. But one can muse on that. However, let us first look out how he is also showing his deftness as a leader of his party and the politics of his state.

A few days ago, he consolidated his position as the head of his party when he led the PDP to win at the Federal High Court in Abuja in his bid to present, as part of a collective resolve, the person of Umo Eno as the standard flag bearer in the 2023 governorship poll. Some dissenting forces on the fringe of his party challenged the three-man formula endorsed by law and INEC as well as the new electoral law for conducting the ward elections across the state. They argued that it was not properly adhered to and asked the courts to nullify it.

They had, it seemed, tried to ape the melee in the opposition party, the All Progressives Congress, where INEC had come to notify them of the improprieties of their primaries. So, the PDP fringe persons went to court to finagle a sort of torpedoing the process and therefore outplay Udom Emmanuel. But Justice Obiora Egwuata of the Federal High Court, Abuja, had other ideas. He dismissed the suit as incompetent and lacking in merit. As one barrister Emmanuel Enoidem noted, “the judgment will serve as a benchmark for a lot of litigants who will want to go to court on issues concerning the 2022 Electoral Act, especially section 84 (3) that a lot of people are brandishing out of context.”

One of the big victors is candidate Eno, an ecclesiastic, who waxed pastoral in his response, calling it “God in action” and…“that is what the handwriting of God looks like.” In the bigger picture, it is also the big design of another governor as cleric in Emmanuel who has seen Eno as a crucial part of his completion agenda.

The completion agenda is to bring governance and the political culture of the state in tandem with Gov. Emmanuel’s dream sheet since he ascended the throne as the chief executive. Is it the Ibom Air, a project of extraordinary audacity, turning an otherwise outback state into the airspace charting the path for other airlines in the country in the sky? Or is it his work in the area of housing, a systematic building of estates to match the growing sprawl of Uyo and other major urban areas with the rising profile as a place not just of civil servants but of professionals who have started trooping to live there, meaning it is also a cynosure for high and low classes. Shall we forget the high tower of a building to answer the yearning of the oil majors and other companies who want offices to operate from?  The Dakkada Tower is the smartest in the region and one of the smartest in the west coast of Africa. We can speak of the strides in education and infrastructure, with highways that not only inter-connect the urban and rural areas but open the way to wayfarers entering and the leaving the state. The coconut factory, billed as a revolutionary touchstone in an industrial Nigeria, has been launched to cater to many needs in one swoop.

But all of these require not just the steady hand of a governor but also a mobiliser of men and women, especially in the political terrain. That does not only mean getting members of the fold under one umbrella, but ensuring that the opponents crack and split and become incapacitated. They become divided. When war erupts, it is not a war but a rout. With quite of few implosions in the main opposition party, the APC, Emmanuel’s PDP is preening quietly. Recently, one of the chieftains of the APC, and secretary of its National Working Committee, Akpan Udoedehe, quit to star in the newly formed NNPP under Rabiu Kwankwanso. The party has come apart at the seam. This is because the PDP in the state has held together under the leadership and ideology fashioned under Emmanuel.

We saw recently a gale of defections spearheaded by Bishop Samuel Akpan and other big wigs who defected to the PDP in a fanfare, and were received by PDP party chairman Aniekan Akpan. For Bishop Akpan, it was not only a defection but also a homecoming. He was one of the founding members of the PDP before he left. His return was a sort of a prodigal son’s return, without the extravagancies of dissipation. He did not come alone, but with as many as 20,000 followers unhappy with their sojourn in the APC.

This is the worth of a leader. A party man is good for the party. A good governor is good for the state. But a good party man who is not a good administrator is as bad as a good administrator who is not a good party man. In the first instance, the party man may win an election and fail the people on the throne. It is a talent as disillusion. A goof administrator who is a bad party man may, one, never get there because you need good politics to win an election. Two, if a good administrator by an odd fortune secures the electoral win, he might be so much a disaster as a politician that he and his party may be swept out of power. His good deeds may never be seen or appreciated. In fact, he may not be able to rally a people to a good idea of governance.

Hence we must appreciate Governor Emmanuel who has combined both attributes, and no one can wonder why his profile is so assured in this generation. He is a man on horseback riding ever confidently into the horizon.