Can The People Say Amen To PDP Candidates’ Fallacies?


By UbongAbasi Ise

At Uyo’s Christmas Carol Night Festival held on Friday 21, December 2018, with the theme, ‘Let The People Say Amen,’ the PDP Vice Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, was handed another opportunity to continue with his predilection for reeling out uncorroborated facts and figures  to hold his audience spellbound. Trust the Anambra man; he wouldn’t waste time in telling Uyo residents and visitors alike what they never knew about the city. He said, “If you go to the economic indices of 2018, you will see that Uyo is one of 10 fastest growing cities in Africa. I wish the present driver (Udom Emmanuel) was driving Nigeria.”  With this homespun expression, it was clear that Obi was attributing the rapid growth of Akwa Ibom State Capital to a three-and-a-half year old administration of Mr. Udom Emmanuel.

If Mr. Peter Obi wasn’t heavily intoxicated with his vice presidential ambition and grossly blinded by his obsessive love for the PDP, perhaps, he would have been sober enough to notice that Udom Emmanuel’s signature is significantly missing on all pages of Uyo’s history of modernity. If Mr. Statistics was conscientiously verifying his facts, he could have discovered that the airport he landed was enunciated by former governor Arc. (Obong) Victor Attah and completed by the administration of Chief Godswill Akpabio. The Five-Star Ibom Le Meridien and Golf Resort he lodged was the combined effort of Attah and Akpabio administrations. The state-of-the-art Government House in Uyo he was received was uncommonly transformed by the administration of Godswill Akpabio. The Uyo Township stadium he stood to peddle his products of febrile imagination was refurbished by Obong Attah.  And all the dual carriage ways he was driven around within Uyo metropolis were none of Udom Emmanuel’s contributions to the capital city.


If Obi was to be schooled in Uyo history, he would have been dazed to discover that from 1904 when a British, Robert Brooks, led an expedition to the nucleus of Uyo that was then comprising of three villages of Nung Uyo, Nung Akpayak and Nung Ikot Afia to the most recent time when we now have a sprawling city, Udom Emmanuel has not touched the soul of Uyo in any significant way. Right from the time of Piccadilly Circus, the Independent Circus which started from 1960s, to the era of Ibom Connection, Ibom Plaza and Flyovers, there is no striking origination that influence the appearance of Uyo which bears Udom’s signature. Instead of 3½ years spasmodic growth as Peter Obi imagined, Uyo’s splendour is fading miserably under Mr. Emmanuel. In other words, Uyo attended its peak in 2015 at the time Godswill Akpabio was leaving office, then followed a declining moribund period in the life of the largest city of Akwa Ibom State.  Therefore Udom Emmanuel does not deserve the hype accorded him by Peter Obi. Such glory should have gone to Obong Victor Attah, the Father of modern Akwa Ibom and the Grand Designer of Uyo metropolis - may history remember him, and let the people say Amen.

Godswill Akpabio, not Udom Emmanuel, deserves eulogies for drastically and dramatically changing the face of Uyo through his uncommon transformative approach to development. Today, the city can boast of International Stadium, e-Library, flyovers, magnificent Government House, world class Specialist Hospital including excellent road networks – may history of Uyo never forget him, and let the people say Amen.

Instead of Udom, may history also remember Okuku Okpokpo Etuknwa who facilitated the donation of land to Brook to plant a seed of urbanization that blossom into a full-fledged city today. May our memory never forget Obong Thomas Udok who, in the 1920s, built the first storey building in Uyo at No.1 Barracks Road, let the people say Amen.

Udom Emmanuel is going vainglorious with industrialization toga. The question to Peter Obi is: how many industries have Mr. Emmanuel whom he wished drives Nigeria, sited in Uyo in order to attract working population? We don’t need persons like Peter Obi to come down to annihilate our history and to confuse us with surreal statistics in order to make us believe that Rome was built in a day. As the presidential campaign is underway, let Nigerians closely monitor Peter Obi and his bogus statistical speeches and argumentum ad populum fallacies because they can be mischievous and misleading. A week earlier at the vice presidential debate, his proven inconsistency with facts and figures was laid bare for the world to see as he inaptly kept on referencing China and putting the total number of vehicles available in Nigeria to about 2 million whereas the NBS expert report place it at about 11 million. Obi’s claim that Uyo emerge as one of the 10 fast growing cities in Africa in less than four years of Udom administration is unfortunately a negation of actualities and history.

The Carol night did not pass away without another make-believe sophistry coming from Mr. Udom Emmanuel himself, another PDP candidate. It was clear that the Governor is observing Adolph Hitler’s credo which says, “make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.” Udom was of self-delusion that he was the one crashing the price of garri. In his words, “Three and half years ago, garri, was sold 2 cups for 200 Naira. Today, our people now buy 14 cups of the same garri for 200 hundred Naira.” As I have already captured in one of my recent articles and deemed it necessary to reproduce same here, it seems the governor is not aware that the bulk of cassava products consumed today in the state come from Cross River State. First of all, a visit to T-Junction and Okopedi Market in Itu local government area would prove the point. At the aforementioned locations, cassava products are brought on high commercial scale from Cross River communities of Uyanga, Umon, Idim Ndon, Obom Itiat, Afia Isong, Idere and various farm settlements in Biase local government area. If buyers from Akwa Ibom are permitted to enter the cassava producing communities in Cross River today, they can pay N200 for a full 20-liter paint container of foofoo. This shows that the food basket of Akwa Ibom is still Cross River State. If this fact is doubted, let the Akwa Ibom State government dare stop T-junction and Okopedi Market or any part of the State from receiving the inflow of cassava products from those Cross River communities,  then Akwa Ibom would know the true colour of food crisis if not outright famine.  It is an open secret that Akwa Ibom can’t just stop depending on Cross River State for garri and foofoo unless some magic supervene.  At present, a big basin of garri in places like Ugep, Ogoja, Obubra, Odukpani, etc. is priced as low as N2,500, and the price of a sizable bagful of garri hovers around N5,000. These are places where Akwa Ibom traders constantly buy their cassava produce. Outside that, they go as far as Benue State to import garri into the state.  Despite the giant stride the state government claims to have recorded in the area of cassava production and food sufficiency, the old, traditional trade routes have not been altered: Akwa Ibomites don’t stop thronging Cross River State on regular basis in want of garri. One of the personnel in one of the cassava processing mills established by Udom’s government, who confided in me, said it is rather unthinkable that the insignificant quantity of garri they produce on irregular basis would sufficiently sustain the whole state to the extent of crashing down the price. It might be a supernatural intervention. After all, five fishes and two loaves of bread were used to feed 4,000 hungry persons according to Holy Bible. 

What makes the price of garri very low in Cross River State, with a direct influence on Akwa Ibom? It is because of the Federal Government’s FADAMA III additional financing project going on, which has been sincerely and conveniently integrated into the farming culture of the good people of Cross River State.  The agro project targeted 6,000 hectares for the cultivation of cassava in 2017. Room was created to accommodate over 4,000 cassava farmers through Anchor Borrowers Scheme. As noted in the media by Mr. Bassey Elemi, the Cross River State Coordinator of FADAMA III project, three improved varieties of cassava were cultivated at several locations in Cross River State. With these, cassava become sufficient, and Akwa Ibom becomes a direct beneficiary from the hard work and diligence of her neighboring state.

                Still at the Carol Night event, Udom was to mention as achievement, the controversial rice production in Ini local government area. With marked smugness, he said, “Last week, I commissioned the Ibom Rice Mill in Ini Local Government Area and our plan is to flood the market with our own locally produced rice which will be readily available and affordable.” Conversely, according to the recent media report, rice farmers in Ini have vehemently countered the claims by the state government that rice are grown, processed and packaged at the "rice mill" recently commissioned by Governor Udom Emmanuel. According to them, the 'rice processing mill' commissioned by the governor is fed by rice sourced from Kogi and Adamawa States, adding that government has no rice farm anywhere in the area.

However, the grotesque mendacity of PDP candidates at the 11th Carol Night in Uyo was nothing but pathetic desperation and whims to get the hook into our noses, and then drag us backward for another four years. Only ONE God will save us, and let the people say Amen.

Yes! I am UbongAbasi Ise, For comment, send SMS to 08189914609 | ubongabasiise@gmail.com

©The Sensor Newspaper


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