UDOM'S BOLT FROM THE BLUES

                                               BY NSIKAK EKANEM.

The firing of Udo Ekpenyong on January 5, 2018 from the cabinet of Governor Udom Emmanuel in Akwa Ibom State was a bombshell. It remains the governor’s one bolt from the blue since his assumption of office on May 29, 2015. 

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. He was also said to be an exemplar of how the spoils of office could be channeled on footing bills of “stomach infrastructures” of scores of individuals without bordering to advertise so.

For his works and unflinching loyalty, he was a beloved commissioner with whom the governor was well pleased. Alas, instead of a feather in flame of a dove alighting on his head he was fired on that fateful day in a fire brigade approach reminiscent of the dark days of military dictatorship. What a reciprocal!

No reason was adduced for his removal in a release by the state’s Information and Strategy Commissioner, Charles Udoh, certainly because the reason, as was glaring in the public even before the announcement, remains unreasonable, except to the unreasonable. He was sacked in no distant seconds after the governor’s immediate predecessor and political benefactor, Godswill Akpabio, asked him to do so.

Ostensibly, Ekpenyong’s sins revolve around his inability or refusal to heed the command of acclaimed commander-in-chief of Akwa Ibom politics, who had goaded him, among few others, to stand up in a stakeholders meeting, where the “lion king” usurped the functions of the chief security officer of the state. For that action or inaction, the governor was ordered by his godfather to sack one of his die-hard loyalists or risk his support for second term ambition.

In a society, where the lion king is presumptuously seen as alpha and omega, certain petty perceptions have been laid bare by some persons. Some see unseen hands of spiritual manipulation. A man from Ekpenyong locality, who lessened commuters stress in molue buses in Lagos in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s with rib cracking tales while selling his medicinal drugs, wondered whether Ekpenyong did not pass through primary school to have known that there is no big deal in answering “present Sir” to anyone and that stand-up-sit-down is more of a function of physical exercise than act of subservience or obedience.

Still, there are those who view Ekpenyong, who is seen by many in Akwa Ibom as a wise man in politics, as a fool for his failure to do a common act to an uncommon man. This writer agrees that Ekpenyong is a fool only within the context of Ayi Kwei Armah’s ironical definition of foolishness. According to Armah in The Beautiful Ones Are Not Yet Born, “The foolish ones are those who cannot live life the way it is lived by all around them, those who will stand by the flowing river and disapprove of the current.” On this score, Ekpenyong’s foolishness is not without a chunk of wisdom, but it takes more than ordinary eyes to see the wisdom in his foolishness.

As in the larger Nigerian society, sycophancy in Akwa Ibom is a venture flowing with milk and honey, for the king, who sees from the hilltop, rewards sycophants with skyrocketed gifts and juicy jobs just as blessed are those who spice service with subservience for they shall never lack what to eat. On this score, Ekpenyong’s attitude was full of foolishness. 

Granted, political power is transient, and even worse, an appointee lasts as long or short as his appointer wishes. Ekpenyong certainly is not immune from forces of vagaries of power. He was not, and he is not, indispensable either. But the circumstance of exit from the administration is one too many; it has far-reaching implications that may linger longer than imagined.

It would have been different if Ekpenyong was fired on the volition of his hirer than on the prompting of another. It would have been better if he was sacked on grounds of incompetence or poor performances or malfeasances or disloyalty or any of such things. The allegation of insult by the 60-year old grandfather to the 55-year old senator is too trivial.

The manner of his sack also leaves much to be desired. Why was a cabinet official, often addressed with the prefix, “Honourable Commissioner”, disengaged dishonourably by “His Excellency”? Why was he not given the option of resignation? Why was his disengagement announced by his commissioner-colleague?

If one concludes hastily that the governor’s action lends credence to critics’ position that he is a puppet planted by a politician, whose oxygen appears to be connected to political power, to facilitate piloting or prowling the polity by proxy, the undercurrents regarding Ekpenyong’s sack is a case in point. It is a monumental minus to the image of the governor and would constitute a mountain for him to climb in the 2019 elections.

In climes where political offices are not seen as life elixir other cabinet officials in the government would have resigned as a mark of subtle protest against the governor’s condescending treatment of their colleague. In 1984 or thereabout, Yakubu Mohammed and Ray Ekpu resigned as Editor and Editorial Board chairman, respectively, of defunct National Concord newspaper in objection to action of their employer, M.K.O Abiola, which they perceived was disdainful to their friend and colleague, Dele Giwa, then Editor of Sunday Concord. As it is, the governor’s core loyalists are not safe except they return their loyalty from the “wrongful quarter” to the “rightful quarter”.

Let’s compare President Muhammadu Buhari and Udom, as to who is better in ensuring stability and fortification of cohesion in their respective cabinet: Buhari ignored calls from his supporters to sack his Women Affairs minister, who publicly acknowledged former Vice President Atiku Abubakar as her godfather and promised preferring him to Buhari in event of future presidential election between the duo.

Udom would be naïve to believe that sacking one of his loyalists on the order of his godfather is enough for the emerging king-maker to throw his weight behind him in his quest for reelection. His second term ambition, as Akpabio rightly pointed out recently, would depend more on his performances than anything else; he would answer his full name more than leveraging on another person, however, awesome.

Under the circumstance, as long as Ekpenyong remains a sacked commissioner in administration he delved his hands, heart and head intos the scenario remains a bolt from the blue, portraying Udom as a leader without boldness to call the shot, except the boldness to be at the beck and call of his benefactor, even to his own detriment.

·           

     * Ekanem, a journalist sent this article from Lagos through nsikak4media@gmail.com