“Progress is impossible without change. And those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything” – George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright, critic and political activist
By Destiny Akaiso
Keep politics and sentiments aside. A comparative study of the trend and impact of senatorial representations in Akwa Ibom State since 1999 would easily show that Eket Senatorial District has been the least performing of the three senatorial districts in the State in the last 15 years. This fact is incontestable!
To the contrary, within those years and beyond, Uyo and Ikot Ekpene Senatorial Districts and their senators have been celebrated for justifiable good reasons, with tall evidences which nobody with a keen sense of history and record would waste time to argue over.
Senators from Uyo and Ikot Ekpene have not only enjoyed a place of pride on regional and national scale of performance, but have played the politics of the national assembly in a typical Nigeria setting so well that leadership and power brokers in the Senate have had it difficult and impossible to neglect them when and where it matters. This too cannot be debated.
For instance, when Obong Bassey Albert Akpan (OBA), the incumbent two-term senator representing Akwa Ibom North East (Uyo Senatorial District), and Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, representing Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District, first went to the Senate, it was said to be a taboo in the conservative thinking of the parliamentarians to give the office of a principal officer or chairmanship of Committees to someone who wasn’t a “ranking member”.
But what happened in the 8th Senate? Both OBA and Akpabio altered mindsets, broke records, and changed dynamics by being trailblazers and indispensable catalysts in the realpolitik of the Senate.
While Akpabio became Senate Minority Leader, OBA was appointed Chairman, House Committee on Gas, besides other strategic law-making milestones, high level oversight functions, and enviable massive empowerment of constituents.
OBA’ sustained that tradition of stellar performance into the second term. He was elevated to the Chairman, House Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream).
Today OBA is a household name across Nigeria. Nor can we forget in a hurry the memorable impact that Senator Ita Enang previously had as a member of the Senate. Their names ring bell and send shivers.
One remote reason for this excellence can easily be traced to the calibre and quality of representatives Uyo and Ikot Ekpene always sent to the National Assembly – personalities with the needed aura who had the personal ambition and conviction, who invested their funds, and were prepared for the task ahead because they knew what was expected of them.
But check the record of those from Eket Senatorial District. With due respect to their best efforts, apart from Senator Udo Udoma, I state without any fear of contradiction that none of the successive senators can boldly claim of having been inspired by personal ambition, and conviction, or had the wherewithal to to have gone to the Senate by the very time they did.
There were simply handpicked; spoon-fed with ambition; persuaded and some even forced to agree to step forward for the race; nomination forms picked for; structures built for; and campaigns funds made available to, in gratis.
And as it then used to be, every other thing was done for their victories – just to satisfy all righteousness or the cheap excuse of rotation. You might want to conduct your own independent research to confirm this, but you can be assured in advance that the findings and conclusions will surely be the same.
Because they were so pampered and favoured, they went to the Senate without a blueprint – after all, they had nothing to lose, nor will they think of another term, to be bothered about the possible reaction of voters in the next election. The worst loser, in the final analysis, has been the senatorial district.
How long will this continue? How long will Eket Senatorial District haplessly be at the backwaters of time? These questions are timely. Ironically, this zone contributes about 33% to the national aggregate of petro-dollar that has sustained the country since 1958.
This is why the emergence of Akparawa Ephraim Akparawa Inyangeyen, YPP’s Senatorial candidate for Eket Senatorial District, is seen by many as the envisaged new beginning.
He has the personal ambition and conviction and self-sponsored himself and joined the race, against all odds.
It is good that those who initially were blowing hot air have progressively come to see reasons in the klieglights of unfolding realties.
2023 is therefore a gracious moment for reflection and action, to undo the many years of routine poor representations and corresponding direct and collateral consequences in Eket Senatorial District in the last 15 years!
And everybody is saying: Let’s give Akparawa Ephraim Akparawa Inyangeyen, the Mkpisong of Eket, a historic opportunity to prove that things would have been better if the right thing had been done and the most qualified candidate presented to the National Assembly in years gone by.
