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| DR. IME UMANAH |
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| CHIEF GODSWILL AKPABIO, CON |
- BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE: AN OPEN LETTER TO CHIEF SIR (DR.) GODSWILL OBOT AKPABIO, CON
By Dr. Ime Umanah
Your Excellency, one of the cherished liberties which I enjoy as an elder statesman in Akwa Ibom State and Nigeria under our democratic dispensation, is the liberty to say the truth and nothing but the truth and say my mind no matter whose ox is gored. History will be kind to me that I have never relented in doing this as regards your eight years of terror and deceit in Akwa Ibom State.
In the course of your years of mismanagement of Akwa Ibom State which some of us worked hard to get created, I had written you several open letters. In some of them I called for a change of style in your mismanagement of the resources of our State. So, for you it has been a war against Akwa Ibom people. I will dwell on this but before then, let me first review the recent changes in Nigeria and your singular acts that made the change to happen.
With salient scriptures I had admonished you in previous letters on the transient nature of power. I counseled you to make amends with those you have offended. You never headed my advice but carried on as if you will be governor for ever. Now, your days as governor are numbered. I hope you have started to learn your lessons on the transience of power from the demise of the People Democratic Power (PDP)? In less than two months now, you will fully understand all my lectures on how ephemeral power and wealth are. You will see how many of the battalions of hangers-on that come to worship you now will still come around.
Soon conscience will call you to task on the billions of naira of Akwa Ibom State money you frittered away on your selfish investments and funding of PDP’s lasts wars on Nigerians. Power will always end and the vanity of wealth without honour become pronounced. As further help I will recommend two stories for you to read: “The last three wishes of Alexander the Great” and “The Queen and Her Four Lovers”. You can easily google up the stories. I believe they will speak louder than me.
Now back to PDP: You know most of the problems that brought down PDP today was caused by you. Immediately you saw the billions of naira accruing to Akwa Ibom State, you became puffed up. You began to isolate the founders of PDP in Akwa Ibom State. Buoyed by the petro-billions of the State under your beck and call you began to build a fiefdom in which only you called the shots. Although you never liked President Goodluck Jonathan when he was vice president, yet you soon wormed your way into Aso Rock and continued with your evil at that level.
The internal dismantling of PDP started with your closeness to the President. You misled him to destroy the party with the assurance of our money. You worked for the removal of Chief Don Etiebet as member of PDP Board of Trustees. I read in the Daily Independent then that the President told you to allow Governor Rotimi Amaechi to do another term as Chairman of Nigerian Governor’s Forum (NGF). You told the President to allow you deal with Governor Amaechi once and for all. So you pushed for the NGF election to remove Amaechi contrary to the president’s views. At the election you became the architect of the undemocratic arithmetic where 16 became more than 19 to the embarrassment of all Nigerians. And the die was cast for the dismantling of PDP.
This was how your aggrandizement initiated the problems of PDP. Your actions gave rise to the “New PDP”. You called the dissenting PDP governors “JUDAS” and tried to ridicule them. As election approached you misled the President to think that his success depended solely on PDP governors. So strong PDP leaders were isolated and made inconsequential. You destroyed PDP just like you already did back home. The result is the humiliation of the 22 PDP governorship aspirants in Akwa Ibom State who scored no votes in your orchestrated primaries.
Think about this: did the PDP win any State in the North where the “New PDP” governors preside? No! Not even Niger and Jigawa States, where the governors later stayed back! Today all the swag of Abuja power you deluded in, is gone! Change has come! Do you think change will not also come to Akwa Ibom State? You will soon find out that God has anointed the All Progressives Congress to sanitize the confusion you created in Akwa Ibom State. Surely, Umanah Okon Umanah will take over the leadership of our State, and restore morality, stop the unresolved murders, kidnappings and looting.
May I ask, please, Gov. Godswill Akpabio what are you really looking for? At a time of sober reflection, which the elections should present, you still continue with your rampage. The same way you divided Nigerians and saw the result in the defeat of PDP at the national level, you started with Akwa Ibom State. Never at a time are Akwa Ibom people have been so divided along ethnic and sectional lines as under you. You have even asked Akwa Ibom youths to rise against their parents. You had boasted that whoever wanted to contest election without your blessing will die! What a demi-god! Please what moral legacy are you leaving for your children and our people?
During the 28th March, 2015 elections you paid some Abak and Ikot-Obioko youths to waylay me in my constituency. This was in line with your boasts that we the elders of the State in the APC would not secure any vote for General Muhammadu Buhari and for our National Assembly candidates. Paid youths led by your commissioner for information, Aniekan Umanah moved in with hordes of policemen and military men and laid siege on my village. And you think you will not regret these? Has your swag not come to an end with your dismantling and unraveling of the PDP? So what does it profit you to corrupt our youths to act like hooligans just because of power, which is so transient!
You have amassed wealth, used our commonwealth to ‘uncommonly transform’ PDP at the national level. The ‘uncommonness’ of your transformation of PDP led to disgrace of founding fathers, isolation and loss of power for the party. In Akwa Ibom State you ‘uncommonly transformed’ the God-given wealth of the people to per capita poverty for the people. While you lush and grandiose in so-called “world-class” stadium and water-fountains, the people (some of whom you have used propaganda to brainwash into thinking all is well) descend into deeper poverty in the midst of plenty.
The State earned over N3 Trillion in the last eight years. Please where is the evidence of this fortune on the lives of Akwa Ibom people? Yet you are leaving a ‘generational’ debt of N500 Billion behind! Yet, you still seek to borrow more from Zenith Bank, to have extra to loot! Meanwhile, Julius Berger has not been fully paid for the stadium and unpaid contractors are leaving the State. The matter got to an embarrassing stage when the first lady, Mrs. Patience Jonathan, was prevented from using the stadium during her last visit by the unpaid developer. This points to the massive scale of corruption under your watch. All the properties you acquire around the world are they not vanities? Do you really believe in God and heaven as you love to pretend?
No one destroys his own house. But you have destroyed not only Akwa Ibom State but also polarized our ancestral Annang land. You have been commissioner for six years, governor for 8 years. Yet you insisted on taking the senatorial seat for Ikot-Ekpene Senatorial Zone for yourself, from Abak Federal Constituency. Are you that greedy and insatiable? You soon realized that our people rejected you. So to achieve the inordinate ambition, you used everything, the good, the bad and the ugly. You worked with a discredited Resident Electoral Commissioner, one Austin Okojie, who is infamous for his magical conduct of elections, like the abracadabra he did in Imo State in 2007. You used thugs in uniform and youths you have impoverished in the midst of plenty. There were no result sheets! You used intimidation; and you used a controversial returning officer (who did not even have INEC jacket and tag, and who did not even know the name of the senatorial zone). And then you thought you robbed APC and Chief Inibehe Okori, who won the senatorial election. Time shall tell.
Governor, I still believe you are not totally irredeemable. But you must act before it is too late. The APC published a detailed inventory of your reign of terror, murders and kidnappings at pages 55, 56 and 57 of The Nation of Thursday, March 26, 2015. Most disturbing is the list of 105 Akwa Ibomites kidnapped or assassinated under your watch. I still find it difficult to believe that as detailed and verifiable as this list is, your government has not deemed it fit to make a formal statement on this atrocity. Please, have you heard about the International Criminal Court at the Hague? Have you heard about God’s Court of Justice in Heaven? The blood of Akwa Ibom people will speak like the blood of Abel at the appointed time! Like I said, you are not irredeemable. If you want, you can seek to do justice, you can undo your past injustices, you can make amends, before it is too late.
As we prepare for our governorship election, you are once again alone. Leave your professional advisers and hangers-on for a moment and guage the momentum outside your cocoon. Akwa Ibom people are unanimously yearning for change. Everywhere you go people are calling for Umanah Okon Umanah to liberate the State. You might not have observed that people are now removing your candidate’s stickers from their cars! Who wants to be left behind in the peaceful revolution going on in the State? Yet you want to play god.
At the inauguration of PDP’s campaign committee, you announced that your candidate Udom Emmanuel was discovered and hand-picked by your wife, Unoma. This is ridiculous as usual. Have you turned PDP into Unoma Akpabio party for her to nominate the party’s candidate for them? Or can one individual pick a governor for five million Akwa Ibom people? Yet, you have committed all sorts of atrocities and breaches of faith to ensure your wife’s wishes prevail. So that is how a governor should be made? While there is nothing wrong with you working to enthrone your wife’s picks, but this liberty should be limited to picking her maids and personal staff and not the governor of Akwa Ibom State.
Your legendary boasts are not limited to the one where you said your wife’s wish must prevail. You have been seen boasting that Austin Okojie, the infamous REC from Uromi, Edo State was sent by his kinsman Chief Tony Anenih to deliver Akwa Ibom State to PDP. You have also boasted that the present Commissioner of Police who has served in Akwa Ibom State for more than 15 years was sent by Chief Mike Okiro, Chairman of Police Service Commission, to help deliver your wife’s governorship candidate and other PDP candidates. Now, are you not playing god again? Austin Okojie has not thought of taking a cue from his boss, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who acted creditably and honestly.
You have now concluded plans with your REC, the infamous election rigger, Austin Okojie, to thwart the will of Akwa Ibom people. Upon his arrival at Uyo, Okojie was lodged in your wife’s hotel, Davok Hotel at Ewet Housing Estate until it became public knowledge with the media feasting on it. He relocated to the Le Meridien where your brother, Emem Akpabio, who you assigned to take keep a close tab on him, frequently visits his Room 268/269. Okojie has failed to use the REC’s official quarters. You have also concluded plans to again misuse the Army, Police and the DSS during the governorship election. Stop and think before it is too late.
Now that change has come to Nigeria, I join world leaders and other eminent Nigerians to commend President Jonathan for the manner he reacted to the defeat of the PDP like a democrat and statesman. It is gratifying that he did not listen to the ill-advice of people like you to embark on the misadventure of resisting change. President Jonathan has written his name in letters of gold and posterity will remember him on a positive note. Take a cue from the president before it is too late. Allow the will of Akwa Ibom people to prevail. Neither you nor your wife is running for the office of the governor of Akwa Ibom State in 2015.
Akwa Ibom State is greater than you and your wife.
God Bless Akwa Ibom State.
God Bless The Federal Republic Of Nigeria.
Dr. Ime Umanah,
( Ufan Ndito Ubuene )
Dr. Ime Umanah
Ikot Obio Oko
Abak
Akwa Ibom State
RE: BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE
It is a painful duty for me to engage you in the open space of a newspaper and that is because I have no choice. You have often adopted this medium as a vehicle for venting your spleen on me and the Government of Akwa Ibom State. Your open letters are dripping with hate and venom. The language is crude and coarse. Yet you lay claim to being an elder statesman. Statesmanship is not a function of age but a function of one’s dedication to the ideals of integrity and the orderly functioning of society. Statesmanship is made of stellar stuff and true statesmen do not engage in petition writing which you inelegantly called “ open letter” when they have more decent means of communication with those whom God in His wisdom has placed in positions of authority, even if temporarily.
Your claim to statesmanship is strange and shallow. As of today you and one Ikemesit Iyire are standing trial for terrorism and threat to life (charge No. HU/C2010) at the Akwa Ibom State High Court. Your trial on this two-count charge commenced in November 2010 and is ongoing. It is strange that a man standing trial for such serious criminal offences can even remotely refer to himself as a statesman.
In your letter you talked about the transience of power and that very soon I will cease to be the Governor of Akwa Ibom State. Your preachment is unnecessary because the office of governor has a statutory term which everyone knows. Or are you not aware that there will be an election on April 11, 2015 to choose the next Governor of the State? It is only someone of your mindset who thinks that power is permanent and he must cling to it forever.
You were Chairman of the board of Newswatch Communications Limited for about 15 years. You insisted you should be made Chairman of the company for life and the board of the company resisted your sit-tightism and sacked you with ignominy. It is public knowledge that you instructed Chief Assam Assam, SAN, to file a case at a High Court in Calabar challenging that decision to curb your inordinate greed for power everlasting.
You talked about an alleged mismanagement of the State’s resources without providing even a scintilla of evidence. The evidence of the efficient use of the resources of the State is present for all to see and that is why the State has become the cynosure of admiring eyes by all fair-minded people within and outside the State. Perpetual petition writers like you may never see anything good in a State that has made, and is continuing to make, the difficult transition to modernity. Developing a State is not a piece of serendipity. It is the product of meticulous planning and execution that takes long hours of devoted labour.
You are clearly the unlikeliest person to win a trophy for proper management. You have tried your hands on many ventures and they have all flopped. Here are some of them: toilet roll factory, biro pen factory, chalk factory; plastic factory, soft drinks factory, Computer Company, ultimate motors (BMW),wood export etc etc. None of these is functioning today. It is widely acknowledged that it is the jumbo debt owed by you to Mercantile Bank and Century Merchant Bank that significantly contributed to the death of both banks. The epitaph on the graves of both banks is a sordid commentary on your recklessness and profligacy. so your lecture on management is the equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor’s lecture on marital stability: hollow.
Your talked about “wealth without honour”Couldn’t you possibly be referring to yourself? You have been carrying around the photograph of an American woman you say is a fabulously rich heiress to her father’s wealth and that you are going to marry her. You want wealth without honour.
You have established a solid reputation for yourself as a cantankerous man and an unrepentant trouble-maker. It is on record that you have fought every indigenous Government of Akwa Ibom State, military and civilian. Here is the roll call: under Governor Idongesit Nkanga you started the first ethnic controversy in the State based on language differentiation. The State has been severely polarized along ethnic/language lines since then and I have been doing my best to heal the wounds through a systematic and fair distribution of amenities and appointments to all sections of the State. You fought Governor Akpan Isemin viciously and sponsored all kinds of litigation to distract him. In 2001, you hoodwinked the Governor Attah administration into awarding a contract worth over N3B (Three Billion Naira) for the dredging of the Ibaka sea corridor to your company. You abandoned the contract after payment was made to you and turned around to use the same money to fight Governor Attah in the 2003 governorship election.
Again, in 2008/2009 you got contracts and patronage worth over N4.5 Billion (Four Billion Five Hundred Thousand Naira) from my administration. Again, you joined the opposition ACN and fought me during the 2011governorship elections. Statesman, indeed! You also took up arms against Governor Victor Attah in a fierce claim to winning an election you did not win and could not have won. It is clear that any governor who does not yield to your greed for unmerited favours cannot escape your acerbic tongue and your mafia-style intrigues.
You are now speaking in glowing terms about the APC Governorship candidate, Umana Okon Umana. You seem to forget that Umana served in my government as the Secretary to the State Government for six and a half years. You seem to forget, too, that Umana was in the PDP and part of this government until a few months ago. At that time he was to you a villain.
Now he is your hero, your beautiful virgin, unkissed, untainted, undefiled. He is now the new road to Eldorado, the new messiah, the man with the magic wand who will solve all your problems with the wave of a walking stick. Pray, what has changed about Umana Okon Umana within the last few months? The answer is POLITICS, Politics of the stomach.
You falsely accused the Government, without any shred of evidence, of the kidnapping/killing of innocent citizens. We have decided to seek redress in court against such seditious and treasonable false accusations of Government by persons who seek to incite unrest in our society. If you were not blinded by mischief, you would have known that security agencies are investigating kidnapping/homicide cases in the state. Many culprits and malefactors (like yourself and your accomplices) have been/ are being prosecuted. It is a bare-faced evil, therefore, to accuse a government of crimes you know in your heart are not and cannot possibly be committed by the government. I can proudly attest before the Almighty God that I have never been involved in any kidnapping or killing since I was born. Dr Umanah, can you honestly make the same affirmation before the Almighty God about yourself?
You alleged that the State Government is owing N500 billion. That is a figment of your imagination. As a truth bender you have no respect for facts and figures. By leave of the State House of Assembly the State borrowedN80 billion which has now come down to less than N50 billion which are largely debts owed to contractors for the many development projects that are transforming our hitherto rural State into a show piece of infrastructural splendor.
You have been a serial contestant for power in the State. You have contested three times and failed three times. The people have roundly rejected you which is why you have now set up shop as a career critic knowing that your quest for the governorship of Akwa Ibom State is a pie in the sky. You try to present yourself as Sir Galahad, pure and noble but Akwa Ibomites know you better than you think they do.
They know that, like Janus, you are double-faced. Your exploits are driven not by patriotism but by small-mindedness garnished by greed.
You talked about poverty in the State. Yes, there is poverty here as indeed there is poverty in every State of Nigeria. The difference here is that we are not afraid to engage poverty in a hand combat. We have several youth and women empowerment programmes which will in the not too distant date extirpate poverty to a large extent. Reducing poverty is not a day’s job. It is an eternal confrontation with the ponderable and imponderable conditions of human existence. Our free and compulsory education programme is potentially the best antidote to poverty. No one can be poor if he is well educated. To suggest, as you have done, that poverty can be eliminated from any society within eight short years is a reflection of the poverty of your ideas. I ask you, Dr. Umanah, please grow up.
You claimed in your open letter that my wife owns Davok Hotel in Ewet Housing Estate where you claim the INEC REC, Mr. Austin Okojie, lodged. My wife does not own a hotel called Davok or a hotel by any other name anywhere on this planet. If you had done your home work you would have known that the hotel is not owned by my wife but because you have a penchant for public deception and you are an expert in vulgar abuse the truth or falsity of it did not matter to you. Statesman indeed!
Your claim that the last election in Akwa Ibom was not free and fair is not substantiated. Such claims cannot stand the test of close scrutiny because election losers in Nigeria hardly ever accept defeat. That is why many persons within and outside the country are congratulating President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting defeat and congratulating the winner despite the many imperfections in the election.
You have named yourself self-importantly as Ufan Ndito Ubuene (friend of the poor). This presumptuous self-advertisement is alien to the facts on the ground. When you were Chairman of Abak Local Government the Federal Government paid a huge compensation for the land at Ibagwa which it acquired for the army barracks there. You pocketed a large sum of the money and paid the poor people who owned the land peanuts. The people protested but you used their money you had pocketed to fight them. You are like the socialists of old who always claimed that they were fighting capitalists in order to corner the wealth and use it to fight for the poor. But the wealth always made them capitalists in socialist clothing. That is what you are. Friend of the poor indeed!
Your wide ranging allegations against me are all surface, no substance. I would categorize your allegations as the flippancy of the frivolous as there is no shred of evidence to substantiate your allegations. Your words are aflame with dishonesty. Your advice is dense with sanctimony. How can a Benedict Arnold be trying to give Dionysian lectures when the people know the true worth or better put the true worthlessness of his words.
It is obvious that your open letters to me are aimed at refurbishing your battered image. But the public knows better. For me this is a distraction. I do not intend to continue to respond to your vituperations because your tantrums do not add value to public discourse. Instead I intend, from now onwards, to prepare myself for the task of effectively representing my constituency as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the benefit of Akwa Ibom and Nigeria.
Dr. Ime Umanah, if you want to be seen, treated and regarded as a statesman you have to turn a new leaf BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio, CON
Executive Governor, Akwa Ibom State
REJOINDER TO GODSWILL AKPABIO'S REPLY TO MY OPEN LETTER, "BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE"
Ikot Obio Oko
Abak
Akwa Ibom State
RE: BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE
It is a painful duty for me to engage you in the open space of a newspaper and that is because I have no choice. You have often adopted this medium as a vehicle for venting your spleen on me and the Government of Akwa Ibom State. Your open letters are dripping with hate and venom. The language is crude and coarse. Yet you lay claim to being an elder statesman. Statesmanship is not a function of age but a function of one’s dedication to the ideals of integrity and the orderly functioning of society. Statesmanship is made of stellar stuff and true statesmen do not engage in petition writing which you inelegantly called “ open letter” when they have more decent means of communication with those whom God in His wisdom has placed in positions of authority, even if temporarily.
Your claim to statesmanship is strange and shallow. As of today you and one Ikemesit Iyire are standing trial for terrorism and threat to life (charge No. HU/C2010) at the Akwa Ibom State High Court. Your trial on this two-count charge commenced in November 2010 and is ongoing. It is strange that a man standing trial for such serious criminal offences can even remotely refer to himself as a statesman.
I am happy that you have admitted that in Akwa Ibom State there exists a free atmosphere that enables you to say your “mind no matter whose ox is gored”. Who do you think created that atmosphere that enables you to abuse and insult and harass and intimidate constituted authority in the State without any fear of reprisal? The State Government made that possible by its openness and its desire to preserve the ideals of our young democracy and encourage the cross fertilization of ideas even if people like you with a penchant for small mindedness abuse it by engaging in rude and rancorous disputation.
In your letter you talked about the transience of power and that very soon I will cease to be the Governor of Akwa Ibom State. Your preachment is unnecessary because the office of governor has a statutory term which everyone knows. Or are you not aware that there will be an election on April 11, 2015 to choose the next Governor of the State? It is only someone of your mindset who thinks that power is permanent and he must cling to it forever.
You were Chairman of the board of Newswatch Communications Limited for about 15 years. You insisted you should be made Chairman of the company for life and the board of the company resisted your sit-tightism and sacked you with ignominy. It is public knowledge that you instructed Chief Assam Assam, SAN, to file a case at a High Court in Calabar challenging that decision to curb your inordinate greed for power everlasting.
You talked about an alleged mismanagement of the State’s resources without providing even a scintilla of evidence. The evidence of the efficient use of the resources of the State is present for all to see and that is why the State has become the cynosure of admiring eyes by all fair-minded people within and outside the State. Perpetual petition writers like you may never see anything good in a State that has made, and is continuing to make, the difficult transition to modernity. Developing a State is not a piece of serendipity. It is the product of meticulous planning and execution that takes long hours of devoted labour.
You are clearly the unlikeliest person to win a trophy for proper management. You have tried your hands on many ventures and they have all flopped. Here are some of them: toilet roll factory, biro pen factory, chalk factory; plastic factory, soft drinks factory, Computer Company, ultimate motors (BMW),wood export etc etc. None of these is functioning today. It is widely acknowledged that it is the jumbo debt owed by you to Mercantile Bank and Century Merchant Bank that significantly contributed to the death of both banks. The epitaph on the graves of both banks is a sordid commentary on your recklessness and profligacy. so your lecture on management is the equivalent of Elizabeth Taylor’s lecture on marital stability: hollow.
Your talked about “wealth without honour”Couldn’t you possibly be referring to yourself? You have been carrying around the photograph of an American woman you say is a fabulously rich heiress to her father’s wealth and that you are going to marry her. You want wealth without honour.
In the 90s when Commodore Bode George was the military Governor of Ondo State you were exporting wood acquired from the State to India using Nigeria’s ship. On one of the trips in 1992 the ship was arrested in India loaded with hard drugs. This was a big embarrassment to the President Ibrahim Babangida Government. The Vice President Admiral Augustus Aikhomo who ordered your arrest, but decided to temper justice with mercy based on the intervention of several Nigerians; it was not because of your fabled friendship with President Babangida whose name you were dropping all over the place because the man himself was thoroughly miffed. Since then the man has kept you at arms length. Talk of wealth without honour!
You have established a solid reputation for yourself as a cantankerous man and an unrepentant trouble-maker. It is on record that you have fought every indigenous Government of Akwa Ibom State, military and civilian. Here is the roll call: under Governor Idongesit Nkanga you started the first ethnic controversy in the State based on language differentiation. The State has been severely polarized along ethnic/language lines since then and I have been doing my best to heal the wounds through a systematic and fair distribution of amenities and appointments to all sections of the State. You fought Governor Akpan Isemin viciously and sponsored all kinds of litigation to distract him. In 2001, you hoodwinked the Governor Attah administration into awarding a contract worth over N3B (Three Billion Naira) for the dredging of the Ibaka sea corridor to your company. You abandoned the contract after payment was made to you and turned around to use the same money to fight Governor Attah in the 2003 governorship election.
Again, in 2008/2009 you got contracts and patronage worth over N4.5 Billion (Four Billion Five Hundred Thousand Naira) from my administration. Again, you joined the opposition ACN and fought me during the 2011governorship elections. Statesman, indeed! You also took up arms against Governor Victor Attah in a fierce claim to winning an election you did not win and could not have won. It is clear that any governor who does not yield to your greed for unmerited favours cannot escape your acerbic tongue and your mafia-style intrigues.
You are now speaking in glowing terms about the APC Governorship candidate, Umana Okon Umana. You seem to forget that Umana served in my government as the Secretary to the State Government for six and a half years. You seem to forget, too, that Umana was in the PDP and part of this government until a few months ago. At that time he was to you a villain.
Now he is your hero, your beautiful virgin, unkissed, untainted, undefiled. He is now the new road to Eldorado, the new messiah, the man with the magic wand who will solve all your problems with the wave of a walking stick. Pray, what has changed about Umana Okon Umana within the last few months? The answer is POLITICS, Politics of the stomach.
You falsely accused the Government, without any shred of evidence, of the kidnapping/killing of innocent citizens. We have decided to seek redress in court against such seditious and treasonable false accusations of Government by persons who seek to incite unrest in our society. If you were not blinded by mischief, you would have known that security agencies are investigating kidnapping/homicide cases in the state. Many culprits and malefactors (like yourself and your accomplices) have been/ are being prosecuted. It is a bare-faced evil, therefore, to accuse a government of crimes you know in your heart are not and cannot possibly be committed by the government. I can proudly attest before the Almighty God that I have never been involved in any kidnapping or killing since I was born. Dr Umanah, can you honestly make the same affirmation before the Almighty God about yourself?
You alleged that the State Government is owing N500 billion. That is a figment of your imagination. As a truth bender you have no respect for facts and figures. By leave of the State House of Assembly the State borrowedN80 billion which has now come down to less than N50 billion which are largely debts owed to contractors for the many development projects that are transforming our hitherto rural State into a show piece of infrastructural splendor.
You have been a serial contestant for power in the State. You have contested three times and failed three times. The people have roundly rejected you which is why you have now set up shop as a career critic knowing that your quest for the governorship of Akwa Ibom State is a pie in the sky. You try to present yourself as Sir Galahad, pure and noble but Akwa Ibomites know you better than you think they do.
They know that, like Janus, you are double-faced. Your exploits are driven not by patriotism but by small-mindedness garnished by greed.
You talked about poverty in the State. Yes, there is poverty here as indeed there is poverty in every State of Nigeria. The difference here is that we are not afraid to engage poverty in a hand combat. We have several youth and women empowerment programmes which will in the not too distant date extirpate poverty to a large extent. Reducing poverty is not a day’s job. It is an eternal confrontation with the ponderable and imponderable conditions of human existence. Our free and compulsory education programme is potentially the best antidote to poverty. No one can be poor if he is well educated. To suggest, as you have done, that poverty can be eliminated from any society within eight short years is a reflection of the poverty of your ideas. I ask you, Dr. Umanah, please grow up.
You claimed in your open letter that my wife owns Davok Hotel in Ewet Housing Estate where you claim the INEC REC, Mr. Austin Okojie, lodged. My wife does not own a hotel called Davok or a hotel by any other name anywhere on this planet. If you had done your home work you would have known that the hotel is not owned by my wife but because you have a penchant for public deception and you are an expert in vulgar abuse the truth or falsity of it did not matter to you. Statesman indeed!
Your claim that the last election in Akwa Ibom was not free and fair is not substantiated. Such claims cannot stand the test of close scrutiny because election losers in Nigeria hardly ever accept defeat. That is why many persons within and outside the country are congratulating President Goodluck Jonathan for accepting defeat and congratulating the winner despite the many imperfections in the election.
You have named yourself self-importantly as Ufan Ndito Ubuene (friend of the poor). This presumptuous self-advertisement is alien to the facts on the ground. When you were Chairman of Abak Local Government the Federal Government paid a huge compensation for the land at Ibagwa which it acquired for the army barracks there. You pocketed a large sum of the money and paid the poor people who owned the land peanuts. The people protested but you used their money you had pocketed to fight them. You are like the socialists of old who always claimed that they were fighting capitalists in order to corner the wealth and use it to fight for the poor. But the wealth always made them capitalists in socialist clothing. That is what you are. Friend of the poor indeed!
Your wide ranging allegations against me are all surface, no substance. I would categorize your allegations as the flippancy of the frivolous as there is no shred of evidence to substantiate your allegations. Your words are aflame with dishonesty. Your advice is dense with sanctimony. How can a Benedict Arnold be trying to give Dionysian lectures when the people know the true worth or better put the true worthlessness of his words.
It is obvious that your open letters to me are aimed at refurbishing your battered image. But the public knows better. For me this is a distraction. I do not intend to continue to respond to your vituperations because your tantrums do not add value to public discourse. Instead I intend, from now onwards, to prepare myself for the task of effectively representing my constituency as a Senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for the benefit of Akwa Ibom and Nigeria.
Dr. Ime Umanah, if you want to be seen, treated and regarded as a statesman you have to turn a new leaf BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.
Chief Godswill Obot Akpabio, CON
Executive Governor, Akwa Ibom State
REJOINDER TO GODSWILL AKPABIO'S REPLY TO MY OPEN LETTER, "BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE"
April 9, 2015
His Excellency,
Chief, Sir, (Dr) Obong Godswill Obot Akpabio. CON,
Government House,
Uyo,
Akwa Ibom State
Gov. Akpabio,
I am really happy that you have come out from your hiding to make some statements, purportedly in response to my several published letters to you. The so-called response is vintage Godswill Obot Akpabio, the known 419 kingpin; it was a cocktail of lies, undignified language and childish flip-flops.
From your so-called response, it will be easy for the average man in the street to know the caliber of man that has been running the affairs of this state. If the allegations you are peddling in your reply are anything to go by, then I can understand the level of not just your intelligence as a person, but the standard of information at your disposal.
As a governor, one would have expected that you have sound means of intelligence gathering and credible information gathering apparatus at your disposal. But true to type, you have just exhibited the traits of a thorough breed street rumour monger and shameless mudslinger.
I am going to dignify your undignified write-up with paragraph by paragraph response, to show how shallow and unintelligent you are even as a "lawyer". I am not entirely surprised that your reasoning and your actions show a man drunk by the sudden thrust of fortune, especially when one takes a good look at your background of deprivation and uncertain parentage (one of the Akpabios, had during the 2006 primary election campaigns, told the world that you are not from the family and you have often been heard lamenting that instead of taking care of your schooling, your uncles were more interested in who inherits your mother). With such a background it is easy for one, like Godswill Akpabio, to see himself as a god, with the new turn of events.
Governor, you wrote that I ought not to lay claim to statesmanship. How convenient for you! After all, what did you know about the state and its progress before your coming to the state to become a commissioner? Men like you will never see the contributions of others to the state you have so bastardised and divided.
As a lawyer, one would have expected that when your aides write things, as they clearly did for you in the instant case of your response, you should read it for accuracy and adherence to facts. But you have the reputation of not reading anything, including memos. A little care would have shown you the type of suit number they put with reference to the trumped up charges you instituted against me; a suit that you have used to persecute me since November, 2010.
In the Akwa Ibom High Court, there is no number of any case as HU/C2010. The Suit number is actually HU/49C/2010. So much for a "lawyer"! Any person that has followed the matter, which has been widely reported in newspapers, will know that you and your agents in the SSS have failed woefully in your wicked endeavour. How come your witnesses, which include you as the complainant, are developing cold feet to present your testimonies in court? I hope they told you how hopeless the trumped up charges were that led to your withdrawing the case from the Chief Judge's Court.
The world will get to hear more about this matter later, when it is concluded. I am sure you did not tell your writers how you tried to cajole me to accept that you withdraw the case on some conditions and I refused, electing instead that the matter goes its full length.
I read where you wrote that you created an atmosphere devoid of fear and intimidation in the state. What a man without a soul. Since you have sold your soul to the devil, I will let the spirit of those that lost their lives in the state under your watch to hunt you. You met a peaceful state and turned it into a killing mine, operating all manners of killer squads and empowering all kinds of cult groups that you have routinely used to kill and subdue the people. Remember that the problem between you and Mr. Mike Ejiofor, the former Director of State Security in the state, started with his telling you that you are the one encouraging kidnapping and killings in the state.
That confrontation led to the man's suspension until he was investigated and found out that he was correct in his assessment of the security situation in the state. You had to lobby for Mr. Minty, a man you have kept in the state for more than six years against any known service regulations. But one day; very soon, you will be called upon to answer to the numerous deaths that you supervised in this state.
On the issue of Newswatch Chairmanship, your facts are still so shamelessly faulty. You said I was there for 15 years. I only spent less than 10 years because; I had earlier told them that I was not going to be there for more than 10 years as the Chairman of the Board. I left when it became apparent that we could not work together again. For people like you, who may not know the history of Newswatch, I am only inclined to tell you that I single handedly gave the money used in establishing that magazine. I singlehandedly imported all the equipment the company used; I bought all the cars the editors were using and gave money for the commencement of their London office, ever before other investors came in. The magazine became the reference point in such publications, not only in Nigeria, but in Africa. Go back to your facts, governor!
It will take you less than five minutes to find out from the relevant agencies like the Central Bank and AMCON, whether I am indebted, in my personal name or my company name, to any bank. They will tell you who and who is indebted to banks in Nigeria, but typical of you; you have no idea of research and usually comes out saying things that always embarrass our people each time you address national issues. For the avoidance of doubt, I am neither indebted to Mercantile Bank, nor Century Bank, nor any other bank for that matter.
In your characteristic manner of dodging the issue of accounting for the Akwa Ibom common wealth you have so drunkenly frittered away, you merely engaged in shadow boxing when it came to the turn of talking about our money. Why is the Akpabio administration so shy about telling the people how much has come to the state and how much it has spent on the so called projects?
Why is Godswill Akpabio not telling us why his star project, the Ibom Tropicana, started in 2007, has not been completed even when it has gulped close to N100b? What is the difficulty in Godswill Akpabio telling Akwa Ibom people, how much he spent in constructing the "Nest of Champions", a football pitch, with no other facility, thereby allowing our people endless speculations as to its cost?
What is so difficult in Godswill Akpabio telling our people, why projects like the Ibaka Seaport, the MRO Hanger of the Ibom Airport, as well as even its permanent terminal building, have not been completed? What is wrong in Akpabio telling the people what has become of Uyo/Etinan/Eket/Ibeno road, as well as the Etebi/Enwang road and its bridge?
How come it is difficult for Akpabio to tell the people why the Anniversary Specialist Hospital, which was also started since 2007, is still lying prostrate, even after the state has consistently led in allocation receipt among states in the country, running into more than three trillion naira? The late Effiong Ononokpono asked similar questions and he had to die.
The truth is that you, Godswill Akpabio, has so impoverished the people of the state that other Nigerians wonder why we are so rich and yet so poor. It is a shame that Akpabio will live with, that our people have become the laughing stock of Nigerians. It is such a shame that each time you ask Akpabio what he has done with the kind of money that came to the state; he goes blank and cannot supply specific projects that could have amounted to three trillion naira.
For a man that has no known job pedigree, or any known means of livelihood to talk so foolishly and glibly about personal investments, is just ridiculous. How can a man whose only past is embedded in his shady pedestal 419, run from his Ajao Estate residence, talk about investment? Thank God you said I had invested and I am still investing, can the same be said of you? All that you are or have are from proceeds from the commonwealth of Akwa Ibom people. A man who came to Uyo in a night bus, from Lagos to take up appointment as commissioner in Obong Attah's government, cannot talk about investment and what it means to invest and succeed or fail.
Chief Don Obot Etiebet brought you to manage his investment in Lagos and what you did was to steal the company dry. You were arrested and locked up in Police cell and you're on bail till today. As lawyer that you're, you should know that no criminal case is time barred. Today, over the FM 101.1 radio program, Chief Etiebet, your former boss reminded you of that criminal charge still hanging around you neck. Shame!
I know you are petty, but you indeed surprised me where I read about some American Heiress and photographs. I ask, how did Akwa Ibom get to the point that a man with this type of mental idiocy like Akpabio could emerge as governor? I made my wealth with honour and sweat. It is still the same successful Ime Umanah that gave you the money that you needed to go to school, that we are talking about here; the same person that helped your uncle Nsima Akpabio to read law in UNN and bought a brand new car for him when he graduated.
I did not need any heiress residing in your vacuous imagination to be the success business story that I have been. Small boy! I am just wondering when you will grow away from your foolishness. Typical of men in your former trade (or have you indeed left 419?), you fabricated the story of a fathom ship laden with Cocaine confiscated in far away India.
One would have expected you as a lawyer to know that General Ibrahim Babangida had no jurisdiction to determine what the Indian government should or should not do with such a crime. But you explained the outcome away devoid of any sensible reason for not being prosecuted. Can a man whose consignment of hard drugs was arrested in India, just walk away without being tried and sentenced if found guilty? The lies you tell smell of someone always high in some substances.
You said I drop names? Little boy, I don’t. I have no need of ass-licking like you. I retain the mutual respect of General Ibrahim Babangida. I don’t fawn around people like you; I don’t seek photo ops with people like you. You may have to ask the General about me.
You said I am cantankerous because I challenged Idongesit Nkanga for accusing Annang people of poisoning his seat in Ikot Ekpene and for insisting that Annang language must not be spoken? Well, I leave you to your stupidity. After all, you and Nkanga are now eating from the same pot. I have had no cause to quarrel with Akpan Isemin, any quarrel must have existed in the foggy recesses of your substance infested mind! As for Obong Victor Attah, I had a legitimate political "quarrel". I contested elections with him and had to go to the tribunals, till we ended at the Supreme Court. You must note that that matter led to the dismissal of four High Court Judges!
Make sure that you have not in any way used my name and that of Gov Attah to swindle the state of the sum of N3b. I am sounding this note of warning because you parroted the allegation that Attah awarded a contract for the dredging of Ibaka Sea Corridor to my company. This is yet another deceased allegation from a deceased mind. As I write, I don’t even know where Ibaka Sea Corridor is located. What a shameless lying governor!
Governor, remember that on June13, 2014, in the presence of your lawyer, Mr Kanu Agabi SAN, and my lawyer, Barr Chijioke Emeka and others, you demanded for a kickback of $2m from me on the contract and I told you that I don’t give kickbacks, moreover I made nothing from the contract to warrant such a demand. So if you have recorded a contract of N4.5b in my name, you better go back and find another sub-head to hide your loot. The day of reckoning is fast approaching and there will be no hiding place for you. I am sure you already know this.
On Umana Okon Umana, I must confess that I warmed up to him when you sent your wife after him, storming his office in the Gestapo manner of street urchins. I had waited for you to charge him with any wrong doing in office. I waited for you to accuse him of corruption and any malfeasance, but none came. Knowing who you are, I am sure you would have picked the man and tried him for corruption if you had anything against him. I know this because I know how vindictive you are. But he is clean and that is why I am sure he will be the one that would clean up the mess you have made of governance in this state.
You talked about education being a potential antidote to poverty. How true! But you went into your usual fantasy of free education in the state. I am sure you have not allowed the people around you to tell you the truth about this deception you call free education. I will handle this issue by asking you questions about your so-called free education that I know you will never provide any answers for.
Governor, in the eight years you have administered this state, how many new schools have you built, both primary and secondary schools? How many teachers have you employed, apart from the 576 teachers recruited since March 2013 and have not been paid a dime as salary till date? Why did primary and secondary school teachers proceed on strike in January, 2015, and how far have you gone in meeting their demands?
Can you ask the relevant ministry to publish the result of WEAC examinations from your public schools for the world to see the mockery of education in the state? How long have you stopped paying the so-called subventions to school heads to run the schools? How many laboratories have you built, or equipped since you became governor? I am sure you know that children are writing WEAC now. How much school books have you added to school libraries (I ask as if there are libraries in Akpabio's free education schools!) Free educator, can you publish how much you have so far paid for examinations for the children?
Do you know that parents still pay for NECO fees in your free education schools? How come pupils run away from your free schools to attend private schools, even when their parents can hardly afford it? How come that in a state where we used to see school buses, you have not bought one single bus for any school in the state? Akpabio, the truth is that you have done irreparable damage to the school system in this state. It will take a better head and a better leadership to repair the damage you have occasioned to our public school system and the state generally.
You also talked about my involvement in the payment of compensations to Ibagwa villages. If you had gone beyond rumours, you would have realized that the only role I played in the whole payment was that Abak Local Government Area fought for that compensation when I was the chairman. It was facilitated by the council's legal adviser, Late Barr JJ Umoren, who later became an Appeal Court Judge. The actual payments were done by officials of the Ministry of Town Planning, Land Division, Calabar, under th commissionership of Chief Eniang Essien.
The unclaimed money not paid out was taken back to Calabar and certificate of such return to treasury issued to Abak Local Government council. It will interest you that as the chairman of Abak, I never received a dime as salary or allowance, because I did not need it. It will also interest you to know that under me, Abak had electricity and telephone services, even before Uyo. I am not like you that cannot distinguish between private and public funds. As a governor, you could easily have asked the Abak Local Government council to avail you of the documents pertaining to the compensation transactions, instead of depending on ill-informed and ignorant aides to pen factually inaccurate documents for you to sign.
With your penchant for election fraud, it is right in your eyes to say that the last presidential and National Assembly election were free and fair. As God would have it, He blinded you to fill in your form that you were contesting for Akwa Ibom North East. Fortunately we don’t have North East in Akwa Ibom state, what Chief Inibehe Okorie contested and won is Akwa Ibom North West! So be it. Nemesis is catching up with a perpetual election rigger. Remember that your notoriety for rigging is nationally known. Was it not you that told the world that you cancelled one person's name and substituted with another?
Is it not the same you that brought a national embarrassment to the Nigeria Governors Forum, by insisting that 16 is greater than 19? The spirit of 419 has indeed not departed from you. But in this 2015 elections, you will meet your electoral waterloo. You were caught boasting that Mike Okiro, Chairman Police Service Commission sent Mr. Gabriel Achong to help you rig your wife's anointed nominee in this state and that Chief Tony Aneni sent Mr. Austin Okojie, a.k.a ALABAMA, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, to help you again as far as the governorship election on April, 11, 2015 is concerned.
On that day, it will be between you and the people of Akwa Ibom State. Be rest assured governor that these people will not save you, as they are already aware of the Change that has come to Nigeria.
You and people around you have been talking about the title Ufan Ndito Ubuene, with such flippancy. I had cause in 2011 to answer you on that title, but you are such a blockheaded lad as you easily forget things, or is it still the substance? The title, for the up tenth time was given to me by the Catholic Church, precisely, the Catholic Diocese of Uyo in 2001. They said it was fashioned around Saint Francis De Paul, who lived and died for the poor.
I am not a Catholic, but they saw something in me that made them give me that title. It will interest you that that title is still the only title I have ever accepted. I am not like you, who go about purchasing titles, from wherever and by whomever. I don’t crave for acceptance like you, my work and my life are like open book.
I have taken this pain to answer to some of your ill-conceived and halting allegations and insinuations to see if you can next time respond by answering to specific issues raised. For instance, did you or did you not say that your wife discovered Udom for the position of governor of our state? You were accused of being part of the problems of the Goodluck Jonathan administration? Is it not true that your activities crippled the PDP until its shameful ouster?
Have you been able to tell Akwa Ibom people how much they have received in the last eight years and how much you have spent on their behalf? Have been able to tell Akwa Ibom people why they are still so poor when they are so rich in the eyes of Nigerians? It is not about Ime Umanah, it is about our people you have so impoverished.
Governor Godswill Akpabio, I am still waiting for the reply from you that will answer the very pertinent questions and concerns raised in my last open letter and others to you.
Your brother,
Dr. Ime S. Umanah
(Ufan Ndito Ubuene).
I am really happy that you have come out from your hiding to make some statements, purportedly in response to my several published letters to you. The so-called response is vintage Godswill Obot Akpabio, the known 419 kingpin; it was a cocktail of lies, undignified language and childish flip-flops.
From your so-called response, it will be easy for the average man in the street to know the caliber of man that has been running the affairs of this state. If the allegations you are peddling in your reply are anything to go by, then I can understand the level of not just your intelligence as a person, but the standard of information at your disposal.
As a governor, one would have expected that you have sound means of intelligence gathering and credible information gathering apparatus at your disposal. But true to type, you have just exhibited the traits of a thorough breed street rumour monger and shameless mudslinger.
I am going to dignify your undignified write-up with paragraph by paragraph response, to show how shallow and unintelligent you are even as a "lawyer". I am not entirely surprised that your reasoning and your actions show a man drunk by the sudden thrust of fortune, especially when one takes a good look at your background of deprivation and uncertain parentage (one of the Akpabios, had during the 2006 primary election campaigns, told the world that you are not from the family and you have often been heard lamenting that instead of taking care of your schooling, your uncles were more interested in who inherits your mother). With such a background it is easy for one, like Godswill Akpabio, to see himself as a god, with the new turn of events.
Governor, you wrote that I ought not to lay claim to statesmanship. How convenient for you! After all, what did you know about the state and its progress before your coming to the state to become a commissioner? Men like you will never see the contributions of others to the state you have so bastardised and divided.
As a lawyer, one would have expected that when your aides write things, as they clearly did for you in the instant case of your response, you should read it for accuracy and adherence to facts. But you have the reputation of not reading anything, including memos. A little care would have shown you the type of suit number they put with reference to the trumped up charges you instituted against me; a suit that you have used to persecute me since November, 2010.
In the Akwa Ibom High Court, there is no number of any case as HU/C2010. The Suit number is actually HU/49C/2010. So much for a "lawyer"! Any person that has followed the matter, which has been widely reported in newspapers, will know that you and your agents in the SSS have failed woefully in your wicked endeavour. How come your witnesses, which include you as the complainant, are developing cold feet to present your testimonies in court? I hope they told you how hopeless the trumped up charges were that led to your withdrawing the case from the Chief Judge's Court.
The world will get to hear more about this matter later, when it is concluded. I am sure you did not tell your writers how you tried to cajole me to accept that you withdraw the case on some conditions and I refused, electing instead that the matter goes its full length.
I read where you wrote that you created an atmosphere devoid of fear and intimidation in the state. What a man without a soul. Since you have sold your soul to the devil, I will let the spirit of those that lost their lives in the state under your watch to hunt you. You met a peaceful state and turned it into a killing mine, operating all manners of killer squads and empowering all kinds of cult groups that you have routinely used to kill and subdue the people. Remember that the problem between you and Mr. Mike Ejiofor, the former Director of State Security in the state, started with his telling you that you are the one encouraging kidnapping and killings in the state.
That confrontation led to the man's suspension until he was investigated and found out that he was correct in his assessment of the security situation in the state. You had to lobby for Mr. Minty, a man you have kept in the state for more than six years against any known service regulations. But one day; very soon, you will be called upon to answer to the numerous deaths that you supervised in this state.
On the issue of Newswatch Chairmanship, your facts are still so shamelessly faulty. You said I was there for 15 years. I only spent less than 10 years because; I had earlier told them that I was not going to be there for more than 10 years as the Chairman of the Board. I left when it became apparent that we could not work together again. For people like you, who may not know the history of Newswatch, I am only inclined to tell you that I single handedly gave the money used in establishing that magazine. I singlehandedly imported all the equipment the company used; I bought all the cars the editors were using and gave money for the commencement of their London office, ever before other investors came in. The magazine became the reference point in such publications, not only in Nigeria, but in Africa. Go back to your facts, governor!
It will take you less than five minutes to find out from the relevant agencies like the Central Bank and AMCON, whether I am indebted, in my personal name or my company name, to any bank. They will tell you who and who is indebted to banks in Nigeria, but typical of you; you have no idea of research and usually comes out saying things that always embarrass our people each time you address national issues. For the avoidance of doubt, I am neither indebted to Mercantile Bank, nor Century Bank, nor any other bank for that matter.
In your characteristic manner of dodging the issue of accounting for the Akwa Ibom common wealth you have so drunkenly frittered away, you merely engaged in shadow boxing when it came to the turn of talking about our money. Why is the Akpabio administration so shy about telling the people how much has come to the state and how much it has spent on the so called projects?
Why is Godswill Akpabio not telling us why his star project, the Ibom Tropicana, started in 2007, has not been completed even when it has gulped close to N100b? What is the difficulty in Godswill Akpabio telling Akwa Ibom people, how much he spent in constructing the "Nest of Champions", a football pitch, with no other facility, thereby allowing our people endless speculations as to its cost?
What is so difficult in Godswill Akpabio telling our people, why projects like the Ibaka Seaport, the MRO Hanger of the Ibom Airport, as well as even its permanent terminal building, have not been completed? What is wrong in Akpabio telling the people what has become of Uyo/Etinan/Eket/Ibeno road, as well as the Etebi/Enwang road and its bridge?
How come it is difficult for Akpabio to tell the people why the Anniversary Specialist Hospital, which was also started since 2007, is still lying prostrate, even after the state has consistently led in allocation receipt among states in the country, running into more than three trillion naira? The late Effiong Ononokpono asked similar questions and he had to die.
The truth is that you, Godswill Akpabio, has so impoverished the people of the state that other Nigerians wonder why we are so rich and yet so poor. It is a shame that Akpabio will live with, that our people have become the laughing stock of Nigerians. It is such a shame that each time you ask Akpabio what he has done with the kind of money that came to the state; he goes blank and cannot supply specific projects that could have amounted to three trillion naira.
For a man that has no known job pedigree, or any known means of livelihood to talk so foolishly and glibly about personal investments, is just ridiculous. How can a man whose only past is embedded in his shady pedestal 419, run from his Ajao Estate residence, talk about investment? Thank God you said I had invested and I am still investing, can the same be said of you? All that you are or have are from proceeds from the commonwealth of Akwa Ibom people. A man who came to Uyo in a night bus, from Lagos to take up appointment as commissioner in Obong Attah's government, cannot talk about investment and what it means to invest and succeed or fail.
Chief Don Obot Etiebet brought you to manage his investment in Lagos and what you did was to steal the company dry. You were arrested and locked up in Police cell and you're on bail till today. As lawyer that you're, you should know that no criminal case is time barred. Today, over the FM 101.1 radio program, Chief Etiebet, your former boss reminded you of that criminal charge still hanging around you neck. Shame!
I know you are petty, but you indeed surprised me where I read about some American Heiress and photographs. I ask, how did Akwa Ibom get to the point that a man with this type of mental idiocy like Akpabio could emerge as governor? I made my wealth with honour and sweat. It is still the same successful Ime Umanah that gave you the money that you needed to go to school, that we are talking about here; the same person that helped your uncle Nsima Akpabio to read law in UNN and bought a brand new car for him when he graduated.
I did not need any heiress residing in your vacuous imagination to be the success business story that I have been. Small boy! I am just wondering when you will grow away from your foolishness. Typical of men in your former trade (or have you indeed left 419?), you fabricated the story of a fathom ship laden with Cocaine confiscated in far away India.
One would have expected you as a lawyer to know that General Ibrahim Babangida had no jurisdiction to determine what the Indian government should or should not do with such a crime. But you explained the outcome away devoid of any sensible reason for not being prosecuted. Can a man whose consignment of hard drugs was arrested in India, just walk away without being tried and sentenced if found guilty? The lies you tell smell of someone always high in some substances.
You said I drop names? Little boy, I don’t. I have no need of ass-licking like you. I retain the mutual respect of General Ibrahim Babangida. I don’t fawn around people like you; I don’t seek photo ops with people like you. You may have to ask the General about me.
You said I am cantankerous because I challenged Idongesit Nkanga for accusing Annang people of poisoning his seat in Ikot Ekpene and for insisting that Annang language must not be spoken? Well, I leave you to your stupidity. After all, you and Nkanga are now eating from the same pot. I have had no cause to quarrel with Akpan Isemin, any quarrel must have existed in the foggy recesses of your substance infested mind! As for Obong Victor Attah, I had a legitimate political "quarrel". I contested elections with him and had to go to the tribunals, till we ended at the Supreme Court. You must note that that matter led to the dismissal of four High Court Judges!
Make sure that you have not in any way used my name and that of Gov Attah to swindle the state of the sum of N3b. I am sounding this note of warning because you parroted the allegation that Attah awarded a contract for the dredging of Ibaka Sea Corridor to my company. This is yet another deceased allegation from a deceased mind. As I write, I don’t even know where Ibaka Sea Corridor is located. What a shameless lying governor!
I challenge you to publish the contract worth N4.5b you alleged to have given me. The only contract I got from your administration was to purchase fire-fighting trucks and fire fighting materials. By the time funds were made available for the importation of the trucks from Brazil, the naira had been devalued by 40 per cent in the first week of 2009. I made the observation, but was asked by the Works Commissioner to go ahead with the job, with the promise that another contract would be given to make up for the losses incurred in the fire-fighting truck contract.
Governor, remember that on June13, 2014, in the presence of your lawyer, Mr Kanu Agabi SAN, and my lawyer, Barr Chijioke Emeka and others, you demanded for a kickback of $2m from me on the contract and I told you that I don’t give kickbacks, moreover I made nothing from the contract to warrant such a demand. So if you have recorded a contract of N4.5b in my name, you better go back and find another sub-head to hide your loot. The day of reckoning is fast approaching and there will be no hiding place for you. I am sure you already know this.
On Umana Okon Umana, I must confess that I warmed up to him when you sent your wife after him, storming his office in the Gestapo manner of street urchins. I had waited for you to charge him with any wrong doing in office. I waited for you to accuse him of corruption and any malfeasance, but none came. Knowing who you are, I am sure you would have picked the man and tried him for corruption if you had anything against him. I know this because I know how vindictive you are. But he is clean and that is why I am sure he will be the one that would clean up the mess you have made of governance in this state.
You talked about education being a potential antidote to poverty. How true! But you went into your usual fantasy of free education in the state. I am sure you have not allowed the people around you to tell you the truth about this deception you call free education. I will handle this issue by asking you questions about your so-called free education that I know you will never provide any answers for.
Governor, in the eight years you have administered this state, how many new schools have you built, both primary and secondary schools? How many teachers have you employed, apart from the 576 teachers recruited since March 2013 and have not been paid a dime as salary till date? Why did primary and secondary school teachers proceed on strike in January, 2015, and how far have you gone in meeting their demands?
Can you ask the relevant ministry to publish the result of WEAC examinations from your public schools for the world to see the mockery of education in the state? How long have you stopped paying the so-called subventions to school heads to run the schools? How many laboratories have you built, or equipped since you became governor? I am sure you know that children are writing WEAC now. How much school books have you added to school libraries (I ask as if there are libraries in Akpabio's free education schools!) Free educator, can you publish how much you have so far paid for examinations for the children?
Do you know that parents still pay for NECO fees in your free education schools? How come pupils run away from your free schools to attend private schools, even when their parents can hardly afford it? How come that in a state where we used to see school buses, you have not bought one single bus for any school in the state? Akpabio, the truth is that you have done irreparable damage to the school system in this state. It will take a better head and a better leadership to repair the damage you have occasioned to our public school system and the state generally.
You also talked about my involvement in the payment of compensations to Ibagwa villages. If you had gone beyond rumours, you would have realized that the only role I played in the whole payment was that Abak Local Government Area fought for that compensation when I was the chairman. It was facilitated by the council's legal adviser, Late Barr JJ Umoren, who later became an Appeal Court Judge. The actual payments were done by officials of the Ministry of Town Planning, Land Division, Calabar, under th commissionership of Chief Eniang Essien.
The unclaimed money not paid out was taken back to Calabar and certificate of such return to treasury issued to Abak Local Government council. It will interest you that as the chairman of Abak, I never received a dime as salary or allowance, because I did not need it. It will also interest you to know that under me, Abak had electricity and telephone services, even before Uyo. I am not like you that cannot distinguish between private and public funds. As a governor, you could easily have asked the Abak Local Government council to avail you of the documents pertaining to the compensation transactions, instead of depending on ill-informed and ignorant aides to pen factually inaccurate documents for you to sign.
With your penchant for election fraud, it is right in your eyes to say that the last presidential and National Assembly election were free and fair. As God would have it, He blinded you to fill in your form that you were contesting for Akwa Ibom North East. Fortunately we don’t have North East in Akwa Ibom state, what Chief Inibehe Okorie contested and won is Akwa Ibom North West! So be it. Nemesis is catching up with a perpetual election rigger. Remember that your notoriety for rigging is nationally known. Was it not you that told the world that you cancelled one person's name and substituted with another?
Is it not the same you that brought a national embarrassment to the Nigeria Governors Forum, by insisting that 16 is greater than 19? The spirit of 419 has indeed not departed from you. But in this 2015 elections, you will meet your electoral waterloo. You were caught boasting that Mike Okiro, Chairman Police Service Commission sent Mr. Gabriel Achong to help you rig your wife's anointed nominee in this state and that Chief Tony Aneni sent Mr. Austin Okojie, a.k.a ALABAMA, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state, to help you again as far as the governorship election on April, 11, 2015 is concerned.
On that day, it will be between you and the people of Akwa Ibom State. Be rest assured governor that these people will not save you, as they are already aware of the Change that has come to Nigeria.
You and people around you have been talking about the title Ufan Ndito Ubuene, with such flippancy. I had cause in 2011 to answer you on that title, but you are such a blockheaded lad as you easily forget things, or is it still the substance? The title, for the up tenth time was given to me by the Catholic Church, precisely, the Catholic Diocese of Uyo in 2001. They said it was fashioned around Saint Francis De Paul, who lived and died for the poor.
I am not a Catholic, but they saw something in me that made them give me that title. It will interest you that that title is still the only title I have ever accepted. I am not like you, who go about purchasing titles, from wherever and by whomever. I don’t crave for acceptance like you, my work and my life are like open book.
I have taken this pain to answer to some of your ill-conceived and halting allegations and insinuations to see if you can next time respond by answering to specific issues raised. For instance, did you or did you not say that your wife discovered Udom for the position of governor of our state? You were accused of being part of the problems of the Goodluck Jonathan administration? Is it not true that your activities crippled the PDP until its shameful ouster?
Have you been able to tell Akwa Ibom people how much they have received in the last eight years and how much you have spent on their behalf? Have been able to tell Akwa Ibom people why they are still so poor when they are so rich in the eyes of Nigerians? It is not about Ime Umanah, it is about our people you have so impoverished.
Governor Godswill Akpabio, I am still waiting for the reply from you that will answer the very pertinent questions and concerns raised in my last open letter and others to you.
Your brother,
Dr. Ime S. Umanah
(Ufan Ndito Ubuene).
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