By Obasesam Arikpo
It is becoming increasingly embarrassing, especially to sensible and conscionable citizens of Cross River State, how political wannabes who always want to be heard for the sake of being heard have elevated social activism to the height of debauchery in the state. I have tried all this while to ignore these hustlers who in their sheer murderous fantasy and abjectness do not see anything good in any government in the state to continue to wallow in their sentimental political hallucinations. But since ignoring them would seem as though they are above reproach and since their antics might adversely affect the smooth operation of government in the state through the sentiments and disaffection that they wittingly and unwittingly plant in the hearts of the good people of my dear state, I have no choice but to address these limpid ingrates in their true and original titles.
Known all over the state as professional noisemakers, pimps, sociopaths, or political killjoys, these fellows are not driven by any genuine political ideology. Because they are not sellable materials, they cannot vie for any elective office and even when some of them had tried to do so in the past, it was just an attempt to be noticed and to bargain for stomach infrastructure. One of them, Okoi Obono Obla who confessed to have started his public noisemaking in 1992, happens to be one of Nigeria’s dullest lawyers who lacks the intellectual grace for critical elucidation and articulation. The other one, Utum Eteng, who loves publicity more than truth, is even a little better than Obla in the sense that he manages to pontificate on certain issues but lacks the moral high ground to call a spade by its name. The last in the league of the professional hackers is their lackey, Paul Ifere, a well known truant who is neither here nor there.
Then came Senator Liyel Imoke, their fellow Atam from the same Cross River Central Senatorial district, who governed the state between 2007 and 2015. A consummate aristocratic politician with patrician grace, Imoke tolerated virtually all their antics and misgivings and tried to accommodate them in the scheme of things. He placed some of them on monthly stipends and sponsored the education of their children and wards. The moment he could no longer tolerate their invidious shenanigans they retreated into the camp of his political enemies and traducers and launched their campaign of calumny against him. Okoi Obla who used to frequent Imoke’s Abuja home cap in hand to collect money became the former governor’s greatest nightmare especially when his erstwhile benefactor was no longer meeting his bogus financial demands. Okoi wrote over 30 frivolous petitions to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) against Imoke, and all of them met a dry well. Today, the sitting governor Prof. Benedict Ayade is at the receiving end of their tomfoolery and ribaldry. As I write, they are in a litigation trying to smear the image of the governor over a non-existent sum of N6bn which they alleged was given to him in 2015. And in this era of criminalization of political enemies when people swallow hook, line and sinker any wild allegation of corruption, some would admit that they are making sense.
If you think that their current hobnobbing with the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the centre is borne out of a strong ideological underpinning, you are dead wrong. It is part of the bandwagon effect of a system in which political patronage attracts the highest return on investment. These people are not just political jobbers, they are political harlots of monumental proportions. If their influx into APC does not yield any material benefits to them at the soonest possible time, they would bulge out to become the worst attackers of the party. That has been their stock in trade. Utum Eteng was the principal secretary to the late national vice chairman (South South) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chief A. K. Dikibo. The party made him a member of election petitions tribunal for Ogun state where he made so much money. As soon as the cash stopped flowing he became one of the party’s most hostile attackers. Okoi Obla too was with National Conscience Party from where he started jumping from one party to another until their current flirtation with the APC. Even with the ruling party at the centre where they are joiners, they do not want to see the original founders of the party in the state.
If their new found craze for the APC is not motivated by the desire for personal material gain why won’t they submit themselves to the existing hierarchy of the party in the state chapter? Why don’t they want to see Pastor Usani Uguru Usani, the immediate past chairman of the party in the state and current minister of the Niger Delta Affairs and his team that had been on ground and worked for the party’s victory at the centre? Why are they persistently plotting for the removal of Usani and trying to block members of his camp from being appointed into positions of authority by the Federal Government? That these fellows do not want to change from their shallow and hypocritical pastime even within their new party accentuates the fact that their vacillation has no end in sight. And because president Muhammadu Buhari has carefully blocked all loopholes for easy or unearned money, they think that it is by trying to intimidate Ayade that the governor could part with the meagre income of the state for their selfish ends. It is high time the people of Cross River state waged a war against these braggarts and their sponsors who are planting seeds of discord everywhere just to undermine development in the state.
Arikpo is an Ugep-based commentator on national issues.
