Senator J. J. Akpanudoedehe and Akwa Ibom People – A Love Affair!
It was Edmund Burke who addressing the British Parliament several centuries ago spoke about his resilience when wrestled down. He said adversities of such ilk only sharpened his skills and strengthened his nerves.
It is now firmly settled that the 2011 general elections in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria, set against the background it was held, proved a defining moment for politics in that State. Never since the travelogue ably crafted by the legendary jurist and famous Ibibio leader, Sir Udo Udoma in his book, The Story of the Ibibio Union, concerning the 1964 general elections, where Chief E. O. Eyo, otherwise called Eyo Uyo, the storm trooper of the then Eastern Region of Nigeria and the nemesis of then President, Dr Nnamdi Azikiwe, commanded his troops, shooting and chasing away an Ibibio hating and recalcitrant Micheal Okpara, then Premier of the Eastern Region, from Ibibioland, wearing short knickers, bare-bodied and armed with a double barrel gun, had Akwa Ibom people seen an evil and kleptocratic government so resolutely confronted. So many lost their lives and many children were orphaned. Many indigenes of Akwa Ibom State particularly those of the Ibibio ethnic stock suffered immeasurably. Many took the risk to resist the Godswill Akpabio governance because they wanted freedom from mass poverty, kidnappings, assassinations, rape, the promotion of the occult, human sacrifice, treasury looting, infrastructure pillaging, capital flight, ethnic hatred, the promotion of self and family by the governor and his mental derangement. Aficionados of PDP itself told of how the governor would simply desire the murder by a specific style of just anybody of his fancy for his own pleasure. It was usual for men and women to beat the six o’clock dusk to reach home and escape the prowling agents of the governor, out to satiate his lust whether of the flesh or blood! Fear gripped the State. Many Nigerians never got to know the state of things because the government of the State had rolled out on all media, firing from all cylinders, in their own words, an unbeaten propaganda of achievement that would make Josef Goebbels green with envy. The government lumped its predecessors’ achievement with its own project and beamed them on television weekly to national and international audience, in a program infamously dubbed the ‘Uncommon Transformation’ a trifle different from his boss’ the President’s Transformation Agenda. Unsuspecting Nigerians were duped into thinking Akwa Ibom was paradise on earth, while deprivation and wants stomped on four legs in the ‘Promised land’. Nigerians never got to know that Godswill Akpabio was a Joseph Stalin’s copycat beaming fraudulent project to the world. He had with him, in an incestuous relationship, a certain Umana Okon Umana, his Secretary to Government, who proudly beat his chest as the engine room of that government. Together with this man, Akpabio launched his bitterest war against Akwa Ibom people on all front.
Senator John Udoedehe it was who led the people in that epic struggle. His vehicle was sprayed with machine gun fire. He survived on account of the bullet proof resistance of his conveyor. Captured and kept under the ground, removed and stuffed into a putrid smelling prison, flown for over five hours mid air to be demoralized, slapped by the Federal police acting in concert with State authorities even in the face of the court which looked on, impotent, as lawlessness reigned supreme; charged for even treason against his fatherland with the consent of the President of the republic, as he sought to give his people an alternative to the incumbent PDP government of his State, Senator John Udoedehe did not blink. He stood for his people. The people reciprocated with real love. He had no cult followership as alleged in some quarters but on the road of true love with his people and he knew that. That was why he persisted and still does. Who would consummate this love? A stranger, a total enemy? God forbid!
Senator Udoedehe knows that there were people, particularly certain members of the ruling class in his State and their hangers on who rued this love affair with his people. There is no doubt that they will love to present the people with a counterfeit. To that end they have fought back; accusing him of greed and inordinate ambition. They claimed he appropriated money granted by Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu for the 2011 elections. Tinubu was in Uyo only five days ago. The Senator reminded the Press to ask him about the money. Only the newspaper whose publisher is not one of the detractors published the response. The APC national leader made it clear he gave the Senator no money. The rest will not as much as quip the response. How they would love to destroy the Senator! Oh how they will love to break his bond with the masses. But the Senator knows the love from his people is sacrificial; It is a love affair forged in the blood of their children. It was forged in sacrifice, not in the spray of looted funds. He is sure the love will endure. It will stand adversity. Not that the struggle has ebbed or the battle resolved. But fear has been defeated and the confraternity of evil has been ambushed by a war against itself. The duo of Godswill Akpabio and Umana Okon Umana have turned the sword against each other. Did not the Holy book say there is no rest for the wicked?
But the love affair between Senator John James Akpanudoedehe and Akwa Ibom State people continues. Soon after he was discharged and acquitted of treason charges, after three years in court, he had visited with the children orphaned in that struggle. He has adopted all the children as his own. All are attending schools at his behest with a bright future ahead. He does not have the money available to the government and their engine rooms but would sacrifice for them, so that, one day; they will inherit a freed State, won for them by their father’s blood and sacrifice. The governor and his engine room may wish them dead but they will not die, by the grace of Jesus Christ. He has deployed lawyers to the cases of those tried or detained in various detention centers around the country; others whose matters are on Appeal as in suit no CA/c/472c/2014 have had Senior Counsels assigned to them. He did not need to tell the soldiers of fortune that left the ACN this. They abandoned the party to join the treasury looters. They are the ones often moaning about being abandoned by the Senator. Some of them who decamped to the PDP had no shame when they decamped again from the PDP with the self acclaimed engine room to the APC last Friday. When will they stop decamping?
Their apologist say the Senator should hand the governorship ticket of the APC to them and be a King maker. How dishonest can they be? So what happens to the orphans, the forgotten ones, the masses, the dependants of those who risked their lives, sacrificed and shed their innocent blood, that Akwa Ibom woud be free from Godswill Akpabio and his engine room? Does the engine room know who these people are? Can the Senator sustain these people on his personal resources all his life? How will reasonable people treat this fifth columnist suggestion?
Let Akwa Ibom people arise and know that they are not only fighting against third term but also fifth columnist who want to hijack their victory. Senator John James Akpanudoedehe has fought for us, his skills have been sharpened; his nerves have been strengthened! Let us seize with him, the triumph that is ahead of us; which is closer than we think.

Francis Effanga, a lawyer, wrote in from Lagos.