SENATOR AKPABIO: THE HUNTER THAT HAS BECOME THE HUNTED part2




Many people who have read the 24 Strategies of War believe that the criteria to be called a good warrior dwells in the ability of such a warrior to take the war to the camp of the enemies. They've unanimously disregarded other critical points in the book which clearly detailed potent schemes on how to succeed in a war. One of such is preparedness, and this point houses several other Strategies. Failure to be effectively prepared is tantamount to a suicidal mission as we all know, and this, Akpabio has become a victim unpreparedness.

Having entangled himself in a steady romance with the devil, Akpabio believes he is now the Alpha and Omega. His confidence has become that of a man who has been intoxicated with hard drugs. He believes he possesses the powers that can stop a moving train, and also cause the a flying aeroplane to be still abruptly. Akpabio in his mind believes the powers of turning impossibilities to possibilities dwells in him. He has mistaken himself for a superman which only exists in movies. How I wish he had read the writing on the wall " Merne Merne Tekel Upharsin" before embarking on his witch-hunting mission.

Akpabio, a man who goes for war without an iota of effective preparedness assumed office as the Federal Minister of Niger Delta Affairs with the sole agenda of staging a war with whosoever that's by anyway uncomfortable with his style of leadership, whereas the ideal of his appointment was to introduce new innovations to which the Niger Delta region could be transformed.

First it was Barr. Mrs. Joy Nunieh, the same lady she appointed into the Niger Delta Development Commission as the Acting Managing Director.

For some days now, Akpabio and his Media urchins have jointly labelled series of allegations on Barr. Joy Nunieh. They've devilishly opined that the woman was relieved of her duty because she has no authentic certificates. But first, Akpabio had maintained that he sacked her because of insubordination. If it's true, how could an acclaimed Legal Practitioner make a mistake in appointing someone with no authentic credentials to head such a sensitive Commission like the NDDC? No matter how much he strives to fool the world, he has several unaswered questions left for him and sooner or later, posterity will come to him with those questions.

Barr. Joy on her own path has posited that her sack came after she slapped Senator Godswill Akpabio, the Minister while he tried to abuse her sexually. From here, we can agree with the Minister that the woman was sacked for insubordination. Slapping a Federal Minister is an insubordination, and not allowing him to come on her is an act of rebelliousness which to the Minister, it is understood as an insubordinate act. So both the Minister and the sacked Ag. MD of NDDC are right in their diverse claims.

Again, Mrs. Joy has also insisted that while she was Ag. MD of the Commission, she was pressured to approve the disbursement of about N10.29bn for palliatives in December 2019. What she failed to state is the fact that she signed for the approval of same funds under duress. We all have heard what happened in Akwa Ibom State between 2007-2015, so I don't think there's any room to counter Mrs. Nunieh on this. We know!

The lady had also maintained that another reason behind her sack was her refusal to sign certain documents incriminating some National Assembly Members who are on the forefront of the investigation of NDDC's wanton and reckless spendings.

To further substantiate her assertion, Senator Akpabio when summoned before the National Assembly joint Committees on NDDC, tried to indict the Chairmen and Members of both Committees. The Minister in a bid to die off the matter thereby easing himself of the pressure, provokingly said that the National Assembly Members are the greatest beneficiaries, of about 60% of the total NDDC contracts every year. He went further to incriminate the Chairman of the Committee as the one who collects all those contracts to other members of the Committee.

Because he is a hunter, he didn't safeguard his hunting gun, he thought shooting sporadically would make him a powerful man, he allowed his diarrhea of the mouth to lead him into destruction.

The Chairman of the Committee is only but a first time Member of the House, and for Akpabio to have accused him as the one who collected contracts for others of his colleagues sometime in April 2019 when the man was appointed Chairman of the Committee in November justifies Joy Nunieh's claim that Akpabio was working on incriminating the National Assembly Members in a bid to die off the matter.

Akpabio's allegations on the Parliaments have stirred up the flame that was already burning him and the NDDC. Instead of setting himself free from the problem as he thought, his statements have shortened the distance between him and kri kri. The Speaker of the House of Representatives, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila has ordered the Minister to publish the names of all National Assembly Members in the 9th Assembly that has directly benefited from the NDDC contracts scam. He said failure to do that within 48hrs entails taking a constituted action against the Minister.

As it stands, Akpabio's allegation which was a calculated plan to die off the NDDC's financial misappropriation by the National Assembly has turned out to incriminate Akpabio and his cohorts in NDDC. It's crystal clear that Akpabio the hunter that was hunting the National Assembly has become the hunted.
Wonders shall never end!


Umani Uwemedimo, a Public Affairs Analyst writes from Uyo.