APC, Udoedehe and the Suicide Missionaries

I read through the statement made by a group which described itself as Forum of APC State Executives, Chapter and Ward Executives published on page 46 of today, 2nd February 2017 edition of the Nation Newspaper paper. The made a call for the outright dissolution of the current State Executive body of the ruling All Progressives Congress, Akwa Ibom State Chapter led by Dr Amadu Attai. I was rattled by the call because, though there are some justifications however depending on who is reading it and his appreciation of the issues raised, that is an ill wind and would not blow any good to the APC in Akwa Ibom State. The open letter was addressed to the National Chairman of the APC and notified him that a parallel exco has been formed and will be announced later.

My initial reaction was a prayer for APC, my party. A short prayer it was. I said: “APC, Akwa Ibom State Chapter, the Party I co-built from 2007 till date with sweat and blood, who has bewitched thee? I speak peace, comfort, forgiveness and unity to you. This storm tossing you to the cliff and edge of disintegration shall pass but not destroy you.

“Thou APC in Akwa lbom State, you must live and those who lived and put their lives on the line under the killing spree of a marauding Akpabio and PDP regime of eight years to set thee up and nurture thee to maturity MUST reap the fruit of their labours in you. May peace and stability return to thee. May thy leaders have good conscience and tolerance especially those who fought, opposed and strangulated thee at thine infancy but are today sharing the spoils of thy growth and acceptability- the promises and possibilities they never saw when they attempted to murder thee.

“May thy new set of leaders for once know that there are thousands of Akwa lbom people who abidingly await your rise in this state and have refused to eat the corrupted and poisoned meal of the moribund PDP in the last 16 years. May they know this fact and allow thee to be is my prayers for thee this hot afternoon.

“May both factions struggling for thy soul love thee more than their skewed interest, cede and concede to make thee greater in the sight of thine enemies so that in 2019, you may rise in glory to salvage Akwa lbom citizens of hunger, unemployment and general cluelessness in governmental engagements, Amen.”

The first reaction I got from the short prayer I offered on my social media wall came from Mr. Destiny Young, a new entrant into the APC and a supporter of Obong Umana Okon Umana as Yours Truly. He said the problem of the APC in Akwa Ibom State was caused by Senator John James Akpanudoedehe who has refused to accept defeat from Obong Umana Okon Umana. He was joined immediately by Mr. Aniekan Udosen of A-Z TV and another supporter of Obong Umana. Those reactions were thunder bolts which worked on my thinking faculty like wild fire.

It is called the blame game, shifting the blame to the next man and not wanting to take responsibility for anything. It is very useful on idiots who cannot take a critical look at the messenger and his message to know whether or not his intent is sinister. I am not an idiot. I have a brain that is working optimally and I can think for myself. So I quickly thought and while analyzing Mr Young’s idea of Akpanudoedehe, I had a rethink of the issues surrounding the current crises in the APC.

Quickly, I have asked myself, How is Akpanudoedehe the problem of APC in Akwa Ibom State and not those who migrated to the party two months before nomination and election, strangulated originality and took everything to themselves? First it is not about the 2015 guber ticket as Mr Young claimed, after all, that is gone. If we are to imply from statements made by Akpanudoedehe and other relegated APC stakeholders in Akwa Ibom State like Dr Udoma Bob Ekarika who almost had his Daarty Hotel Demolished by Akpabio because of APC, the problem is that the new set of leaders in the APC, without conscience, took 80% of the gubernatorial, Senatorial and legislative tickets of the party to the chagrin of the founding members of the party in 2015. To cap it all and very arrogantly, they have also taken 100% of appointment due to the state and 98% the about to be formed federal boards and parastatals.

That is where the acrimony lies and not the bygone 2015 gubernatorial ticket of the party. That acrimony is not instigated by Akpanudoedehe after all, he is not the one who took the tickets and crossed old members who won most of them, he is not also the one who spread the appointments only to PDP defectors.

What I had expected to hear, perhaps as a response from the factions loyal to Obong Umana Okon Umana, Obong Nsima Ekere and Otuekong Don Etibet who are currently vilifying Senator John James Akpanudoedehe was a defense as per whether claims of marginalization and exploitation made by Akpanudoedehe is true or false. I had expected them to justify their actions and leave Akpanudoedehe as a person to be. That has not been done and what we have heard at every turn is that Akpanudoedehe, who was slammed with treasonable felony, an offense punishable by death in 2011 by Senator Godswill Akpabio, Obong Umana Okon Umana and Obong Nsima Ekere after their squad led by Chief Sunny Ibanga waylaid and maimed Ibibio people at Ikot Ekpene on March 22 2011, is the problem of APC because he has refused to concede to the invading cartel now in control of the party in Akwa Ibom State. Fast forwarded and for Destiny Young’s school of thought, on the crisis rocking the APC, Akpanudoedehe is the problem because he has refused to concede his gubernatorial ambition in 2019.

Destiny Young represents the average mindset of those who defected to the APC and always shooting “to hell with Akpanudoedehe” whenever issues of exploitation and marginalization is raised against them.

Today, it hits me like a a dangerous bolt making me to see the whole power game in the APC and the struggle for the Hill Top Mansion differently. Assuming I concede to their position, I feel like asking whether other contenders in the party cannot concede for Akpanudoedehe considering the fact that a man who denied himself, took so much risks, invested his time and resources on a matter is worthy of the dividends of that investment? Why must it be Akpanudoedehe that should not contest the guber poll under the APC in 2019?

That is my new thinking on the current crises in the party. I expect our new found leaders to also shift their grounds on the fact that they are clearly reaping from where they did not sow and causing discord among the camp. Somebody said they sowed, yes, I agree but the sowed rather too late and not with tears, sweating blood as we did at various levels of our engagements then.

I want them to say we are not interested in the governorship ticket as they want Akpanudoedehe to so say! If they cannot say, then let no one expect Akpanudoedehe to chicken out of the gubernatorial race. Let no one also try to scheme him out of the contest by any ill founded expulsion. It will be selfish and jaundiced for us to continue to think that it must be John Udoedehe that must concede to the other factions even when they NEVER contributed to the formation of the party and had wanted both the party and their promoters eliminated while they were enjoying the booties of the moribund PDP. They have to shift grounds or quit the party in peace and not in pieces they have made of her. They cannot continue to be food-is-ready politicians where they flock around a ready-made platform and commandeer the gains to the disadvantage of those they earlier declared persona-non-grata and enemies of state while they were in government.

I’m not sure APC will make any impact in Akwa Ibom State if it does not purge itself of this kind of hypocrisy and self deceit it has exuded in the last few weeks. I hold as my opinion that without Senator John James Akpanudoedehe in the APC in Akwa Ibom State, the party will be a duplication and multiplication of the cancerous PDP that has taken the state hostage and therefore not capable of effecting any change in the system. The current leaders in the APC are guilty of all the crimes we charged Godwill Akpabio and they cannot be clean by simply jumping to the APC and taking the party hostage to advance their inordinate and insatiable greed for power which they failed to achieve in the PDP.

Akpanudoedehe cannot be expelled from the APC. There is no substance to sustain the purported expulsion. He is the face of opposition in Akwa Ibom State and the party needs him if she wants us to take her seriously. If there is anything the leaders must do, it is to engage in a healing process that will address the grievances, exploitation, ethnic “wars” and gang-up, the suppression of the masses by the Godswill Akpabio regime of 8 years which our party leaders today were key elements in the raid. Those hangover and excesses of the Akpabio murderous regime are still bedeviling us today. The camps must be united by ceding and patriotic concessions which John James Akpanudo-Edehe must not be the only person to make.

So henceforth, I shall be calling on both Obong Umana Okon Umana, Obong Nsima Ekere and any other gubernatorial aspirant in the party to give up their strong held positions for each other for our party to move forward and not disintegrate.

The call is logical because all of us have been so blinded, brainwashed with hatred for one another that we intoxicated our self with the notion that it’s only Sen John James Akpanudo-Edehe that should quit his gubernatorial ambition. Others can step down for him too knowing that he exhibited rare gusto, put his life on the line as he invested his time and resources to firmly establish the party. For once, he must be allowed to reap the dividend of his engagements. There cannot be an exception to this rule now. That is the conflict of justice and the predicament of the APC right now. Those who think otherwise could be leading the party on a suicide mission which the future will hold them accountable