BASSEY INUAEYEN INTERVIEW: “Why Udom will get a second term easily”

 Obong Bassey Inuaeyen is an experienced and well-respected politician cum business mogul in Ini, Akwa Ibom State.

In this interview, he talks about his relationships with past governors of the State, Obong Victor Attah and Senator Godswill Akpabio; talks about his rumoured defection from PDP to APC,  discusses his convictions concerning the gubernatorial election in Akwa Ibom come 2019 and says he has a relationship with Governor Udom Emmanuel that stretches beyond politics.

It’s vintage Inuaeyen: Suave, open-minded and direct. Read on:

In 2007, there was a rumour that Obong Attah asked you to drop your governorship ambition for Senate but you ignored it. What really happened?

I accepted their proposal and decided that I will drop my governorship ambition and go to the Senate but my question to them then was when you say ‘we’ who are the we…and what are the elders of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District saying, have you consulted them, somebody answered and said no this is you and I answered saying no you cannot just be you because you have to get the elders to also agree to this and besides when I drop my ambition who am I going to support. They left and told me they will let me know and since they left as I speak today they have not returned because they couldn’t answer that question so I was still waiting for the answer before I could take necessary steps to withdraw from the race then the next thing was Hon. Nelson Effiong and other three principal officers of the House of Representatives as at the time came to me that they were from Governor Attah in 2007 and that they had met with Governor Attah and he indicated to them that he would want me to run for the Senatorial position so they said I should go and see him. I said okay I will go and see him…I tried severally in fact part of my efforts took me to South Africa to meet with His Excellency so that I can hear from the horses mouth because that is the only authority who can tell me to withdraw or not to withdraw from the race

You were very close friends so why did it take such huge effort to see him

Well, you know when you are a governor you have so many things to think about and you can be very busy and at such you can even forget your friends so I understood the situation. I couldn’t really meet with him but then I had briefed my campaign managers that if I go to consult His Excellency and he tells me to withdraw from the Governorship race and run for Senate then we will convert our campaign to Senate campaign.

Of course eventually I saw His Excellency but I did not go and tell him I want to run for the Senate I went to him and told him that I came to consult him that I want to run for the governorship position of the state. He took the drinks and assured me that I will be seriously considered that I am qualified to run for the position that the only problem he will work out is how the Ikono/Ini will get the Senate and then governorship for the first time when the majorities are the Annang brothers and sisters so I told him that is for him to decide and I left. His Excellency at that point never told me that he wants me to withdraw from the governorship race and go to the senate which was what I expected and if he did that I would have accepted it so that did not happen so I continued with the campaign for governorship and I heard rumors that I was asked to run for Senate but I refused. My question is who did that….the Governor then was Obong Victor Attah who was our leader, who alone had the powers to do that so that side ended.

By 2010/11, the then Governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio now Senate Minority Leader actually told me that he wants me to run for the Senate seat in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District and I said okay because this came from an authority and he was in a good position where he worked so hard to achieve. We were very close but political intrigues and other things played out and overwhelmed my position and of course Senator Aloysius Etok was asked to continue. We had discussed this before and myself and Senator Akpabio met and agreed that let bygones be bygone and I actually assured him that this time around I will support his second term bid because the last one I did not support him because I was upset and that is where people get confused about whether I supported Udom or not but I did support Udom that is over now and I hope this explanation also ends all the speculations.

Barring the fact that you have sorted things out with Senator Akpabio, I don’t know if that also applies to Obong Victor Attah and would it be safe to say that the two leaders successfully betrayed you?

I wouldn’t say that Obong Attah betrayed me because he never discussed it with me. The only thing I got disappointed was when he told me one day that he called me to come and run for Senate and I refused because I wanted to be Governor which I never did. I told him he never did that and I asked if he was the source of the rumors and he said no that he told General Edet Akpan and luckily General Akpan was there and General Akpan told me that he didn’t say it but my own position was that I came to you with a drink and I did all other things I was supposed to do politically to consult you when you were in a position to simply say drop maybe because in politics people try not to offend another but for me I don’t share such believe and maybe that is why I am having many political troubles because I say things the way they are, the way I feel so it is up to you to decide so I would not say I was betrayed by the then Governor but at the same time let me also state clearly and categorically that I hold no grudge against any of the two leaders for any reason. When I set out to contest for those positions, I knelt and prayed to God that if this is from Him then let it be and if it is not from Him then He should take it away and of course it didn’t happen so I took it that it didn’t come from him. So I’m fine with it and I hold no grudge against anybody though sometimes I get offended when people who are supposed to be very responsible in the society would go and make a statement which they know is not factual. To say that Bassey Inuaeyen was asked to run for Senate but he refused is a nice political story to tell but then how true is it as I’ve explained today? That’s what truly happened.

It takes a very wealthy man to make an attempt as an aspirant for those offices unsuccessfully to still stay afloat financially. I mean wealth in terms of the capacity to manage shock and wealth in terms of large heartedness would you say you fit into that mould?

I don’t think I fit into the first category which is financial wealth. But to develop a large heart, I think I do and that has been my source of strength. Actually that is why I try to see things from another person’s perspective and I also have the capacity to forgive. Financially, don’t let anybody deceive you in this part of the world if you are running for an elective position it will impact on your finances and you have to cope with the end product of it all. So I made a personal choice and I lost, so I have to live with it without putting the blames on anybody. So I accepted it all.

In the build up to the 2015 elections specifically in 2014 because that’s when the party primaries were conducted, there was this talk in town that so many people knew of the robust relationship that existed between you and the current Governor Udom Emmanuel dating back to the funeral ceremony of your mum which brought together all the leaders in the state and the Governor stated that his relationship with you went beyond politics but the rumor mill was agog that you were not in support of Deacon Udom Emmanuel?

Well, Governor Udom Emmanuel and I have a very good relationship that goes beyond politics….when he was called to become Secretary to the State Government, I was one of those who discussed and encouraged him while praying for him to come and serve his motherland and as a matter of fact immediately he came in as Secretary to the State Government despite my frosty relationship with Governor Akpabio, I still went to him to thank him for making him the Secretary to the State Government and I told him that Governor Udom Emmanuel is my brother and that position is still subsisting till tomorrow and for years to come, he remains my brother and my Governor today.

There couldn’t have been anything further from the truth about those speculations and rumors and of course you do know that in politics you have people who might consider you a threat to their own ambition or to their own political space so they will do anything possible to bring you down. It is not true that I did not support Governor Udom Emmanuel.

But before I knew of his interest to be Governor I had commitments with others and you know in politics no politician likes to float. You must have a candidate and you must belong somewhere and at the same time no politician loves to be ignored. I was ignored by the same party that I helped sustain in this state so nobody was talking to me so I was just there but others who valued me came to me and they were all from the PDP but there was one person I promised never to support and I told him that.

But I had said in my mind that I believe they had zoned the governorship seat to Eket Senatorial District and the Eket people were not wrong to be in expectation because it was their own turn so when it was suggested that Governor Akpabio was supporting candidates from Uyo Senatorial District, I disagreed even at the time the current governor didn’t indicate interest and we went on to form a group called the Leadership Group and we held our first meeting in the residence of Obong Ufot Ekaette. Obong Ufot Ekaette was the chairman of the group and I was the secretary general and our first meeting was the very day Her Excellency Nnenyin was buried and after the burial we all went to Obong Ekaette’s house and we all agreed there that we will support a candidate from Eket Senatorial District that we won’t support anyone from Uyo Senatorial District. I still have the minutes and the documents with me. We held series of meetings and we took a decision that we may not support any candidate presented by then Governor Akpabio and this decision came in the heat of the moment during the discussion.

There is a saying that you don’t follow the length of a snake to set fire else you will end up burning your own house because the length might be so long that it reaches your house. I did not have an idea that my brother Udom Emmanuel would show interest and maybe it could have been because I was not taken into the house and confided earlier enough so I had commitments elsewhere with other aspirants from Eket Senatorial District. I also had commitment with a particular candidate from Uyo Senatorial District in case the then Governor Akpabio insisted on a candidate from Uyo Senatorial District.

But it was a personal support but in the whole I preferred a candidate from Eket Senatorial District. So when eventually I got to know of my brother’s interest in the governorship race, he was here with me and I told him to give me a little time let me go and unbundle myself where I was already engaged and this made some politicians to start speculating that I didn’t support the current governor but I am happy that there are politicians in this state who will agree that I used to come to them to canvass support for Governor Udom Emmanuel and there are many people that I put into the campaign at that time and I told them that Udom may not come from the same place with me but he has been useful to me during my stay in Lagos and he regarded me as a brother so there is no way I wouldn’t support him but my only problem was that I would never support Senator Godswill Akpabio for Senate and during Udom’s campaign at the stadium I stated clearly that I am supporting him because I know him and that I wasn’t supporting the party and I worked towards that. I don’t want to mention names but there are people who will not deny that I was the one who put them up to campaign but there was a problem. I went to Governor Akpabio then to give me a role to play in his election bid but I don’t think Akpabio consented to that so I had to do the beats I can within my own small ability and it got to a point that I attended all the political rallies putting on all the campaign uniforms of Udom Emmanuel but the problem was that when I attended the rally, the organizers refused to recognize and acknowledge my presence but it didn’t matter to me because that wasn’t my reason of going there. I attended the rallies to show my support but then some politicians started speculating that I didn’t support the current Governor. In fact it started from my home in Ini LGA but I am happy that I was the one that took many of them to meet Udom in his residence and during his campaign visit to Ini LGA he informed them that he had a brother from Ini in the person of Bassey Inuaeyen and as God may have it, Governor Udom Emmanuel being a sincere person acknowledges my relationship with him so if anybody goes to him to blackmail me I doubt if he will believe. Today, I am looking to play a role in his re-election. (To be continued)