The Akpabios, The Bridge Burners And The Rest Of Us

In 2006/07 when Godwil Akpabio contested the Governorship primaries in PDP he was the son of a nobody in politics. A common man. Even his aspiration was a collective agitation by a community of nobodies nay concierge of common men. His supporters were young hungry youths on the corridors of politics. Political errand boys who were tired of waiting tables only. This man was outspent by the Ekarika Bob who was son in law to the incumbent Governor,  Obong Arch Victor Attah.  He was outstaked by the the son-in-law’s retinue of stakeholders, elder statesmen and political gladiators. He was equally outstyled by the phenomenal Nsima Ekere to the point where he publicly admitted how he admired Nsima’s billboards across the state. He was outclassed in oratory and finesse by Larry Esin. But community of common men led a revolution in favor of the man who treated them as friends when he was commissioner.

And Akpabio became Governor.  Not long after, he bragged about how he picked them from the gutter. How do you claw your way out of the trenches with the push of your fellow trenchers only to turn around and proclaim how you saved them from the trenches. Oga, you saved yourselves together. They saved you first so you could turn around and save them.

By the time Akpabio’s 8 years was done at the Hilltop mansion, instead of allowing the common man principle to guide his succession process he rather opted for a political transplant. None of those who came from the trenches with him was considered worthy of succeeding him. He had burnt that bridge. But he didn’t do it by himself alone. Some of them helped him. At their various constituencies they made sure to emasculate common laborers in the vineyard of politics from growing like them. They saw competition where they should see comradeship and were threatened.

Since that singular act the common man has had to survive and rise politically only at the pleasure of the elites. In return they too begin to see themselves as elites and the elite cycle continues at the detriment of the ordinary man. The son of a nobody who became somebody is now the reason why other children of nobodies cannot also become somebodies. Irony raised to power irony.

Interestingly, becoming Governor was not enough. Akpabio had to remain Governor and that required some political structures. Being a minority, his predecessor would have easily pulled the carpet off his feet but some of the smart guys he brought along from the trenches tunnelled their way to the presidency of Late Umaru Musa Yar’Adua and a deal was struck to save the governor! That deal tied Akpabio to the apron string of Yar’Adua to the point that he needed to prove his loyalty to Goodluck Ebele Jonathan beyond reasonable doubt following Yar’Adua’s unscheduled departure from the presidency at nature’s behest.

But guess what, once the uncommon transformer consolidated his place under GEJ’s presidency it was practically impossible for any Akwa Ibom son to walk into the villa without his say so. People, especially from southsouth, would walk into the villa and saunder out with chunks of our national cake in cash, contract or appointment. But not us. Our principal common man would not hear of such balderdash. Why? So that no one should acquire resources from any other source except him in other to secure total loyalty to himself. That is the concept of “Final Obongowo”. He does not believe that one can become somebody from a different source and route and still consolidate power with him. No! You will use it to fight him the same way he has fought, sabotaged and undermined others. As a man is in his heart so he thinketh others to be.

The bridge burning continued all the way to the National Assembly.  In 2023 when Sen. Akpabio contested for the senate president he was just like every other second timer. He wasn’t even a member of the previous senate which meant that he had to convince second timers who were members of the previous senate that he was a better candidate than an opponent who had been in the previous senate with them. And nobody truncated that congressional democracy. But as Senate President, Akpabio decided to burn that bridge. In his typical clannish wisdom he decided to amended the Senate Standing Order 2023 to restrict eligibility to contest for the senate presidency to only senators who have previously served in two preceeding senates including the previous. So to contest for senate president one must be a senator for 8 years and a member of the immediate past senate.

Akpabio did not have these new eligibility features he now wishes to introduce.  Why? He fears that the likes of Governor Hope Uzodinma would return to the senate in 2027 to contest the senate presidency with him or that Comr. Adams Oshiomole has eyes on the senate presidency as well. Threatened not by the capacity of any of these men to beat him in a fair contest but by his uncommon unpolularity among his colleagues and his incapacity to represent the common Nigerian citizen as Senate President the uncommon transformer switched into uncommon panic mode and his first idea was an uncommon bridge burning. He succeeded for a second only to be torpedoed by his own party principalities. 

But while some Nigerians applaud the likes of Oshiomole, Uzodinma, Gbajabiamila and Co for nipping Akpabio’s tyrannic play at the bud we fail to see the hypocrisy in their crusade.

President Tinubu who rose to power under the pretense of democracy crusader and opposition leader is committing all manner of travesties in desecration of democracy to secure himself in the presidency. He has taken the judiciary hostage, taken over the electoral umpire, converted state security agencies to his personal enforcers, made proselytes by duress of media houses and bullied state governors into conscription.

While he sustains that at the presidency, he further empowers state governors to equally replicate same at the state level leaving states like Akwa Ibom with a Pharoah for governor who has truncated the entire democratic structure of his party and that of the opposition to the point of absolute ridicule of everything a governor should represent.

So far, so good, bridges will continue to be burnt by those who cross it but become too insecure to allow others cross the same bridge out of fear that they may come to be like them. Interestingly, men have always devised the means to cross a river whose bridge has been burnt or damaged when they get to the river. Some rebuild another bridge, some contruct a boat, others swim their way through and these days, some men even fly over the river. Alas! As the day of reckoning approaches the resolution to cross the river is becoming stronger and so is the inspiration on how to cross the river. Hence, no matter how actively they have the bridge burnt or damaged the common man will still meet them on the otherside of the river.

Written by the street lawyer