The Don Etiebet Interview
...Udom’s Tomato Green House Is A Fraud ...Looter Are Fighting Buhari ...APC United To Sack Udom
Atuekong Don Etiebet, Quintessential Akwa Ibom son, successful Engineer and politician per excellence has traversed the political landscape of Nigeria and Akwa Ibom for four decades.
He knows Nigeria and Akwa Ibom politics. He has seen good and tough times but has continued to soldier on.
He was the National Chairman of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) a feat that is certainly not a mean one, towering over a Party with its base in majority North as one from Akwa Ibom.
He has been in the fore front of political alliance and mergers since 1999.
And recently he played critical roles for the emergence of APC. In Akwa Ibom, he has been at the centre of all the low and high moments of APC and currently sits as a BoT member and Chairman of caucus in the State.
After Monday's inauguration of the campaign committees for Obong (Dr) Nsima Ekere, APC Governorship candidate in Akwa Ibom State and presentation of manifesto by Ekere, Atuekong Etiebet told newsmen in Uyo that all is now set for the expected victory of the Party in the 2019 election.
Henry Nkom was there for The Sensor
Excerpts:
You have known President Muhammadu Buhari for a long time, can you react to social media reports that the Nigerian leader in Aso Rock is not Buhari, but cloned person from Sudan or Niger known as Jubrin?
I am on Twitter and when this story came out, this week when Buhari was in Poland and talked about it; I replied that this is the Buhari that I know and worked with. His mannerism are the same as I know many years ago. So, all this talk of cloning or makeup artist of Jubrin from Sudan or Niger are attacks from his detractors who want to bring back the looters so that they can continue to keep the $1 trillion of Nigeria's money abroad.
Have you not heard that there is over $1 trillion of Nigeria's money in banks in Europe? Does all that money belong to Buhari? Of course not. It belongs to people who want to come back and want to sustain that money and keep us poor. If we can bring back that money, which is what Buhari is trying to do, our lives in Nigeria will be different and that is why they call him Jubrin of Sudan. He is not Jibrin of Sudan. And you are journalists; do you want to tell me that in this world of today a Head of state of a country will visit U.K and die and this information is kept away from probing eyes of investigative journalists abroad? Do you think that is natural? It cannot be natural that a Head of State of a black nation will die in UK and the information is put away like that and no journalist will say anything about it. The question is where will they keep the corpse? They should at least be sensible enough to know that what they are saying is physically impossible.
It cannot be done, no matter what happens it cannot be done, people would have leaked the information. Is it not that journalists have their eyes on breaking the news first? Is it not who breaks the bad news first that gets an award? A journalist in the UK, CIA, intelligence and what have you intelligence in this world would have known what happened and they would have told the whole world that Buhari is dead, if such a thing ever happened. So, it is just the talk of his detractors who want to fool Nigerians, so that they can come on board again to keep looting our money as they have done for 58 years. I am a Scientist, an Engineer and I weep all the time that we don't have indigenous technology to produce anything. For things as little as toothpick, toilet, paper, bottled water, you will have to import the machines required. Those machines are the technology and Nigeria does not have the capacity after 58 years of independence. Look at how Malaysia has grown producing the technology required for industry by itself.
Nigeria does not have a strong and competent construction company that can construct any building beyond 4-stories. Nigeria does not produce a crane or anything that can serve the cause of advancing technology. So the ingredients, materials, tools necessary for development are lacking in the country and that is why we have to import everything. We import technology, technical know-how and personnel. Look at any construction site and you will notice that those standing there are foreigners. We should be ashamed of ourselves. Let me tell you I was in a class with those white people in Europe and I did better than they did. But when we came back here, what is the difference? The difference is administration and management of our own human and natural resources. And this is the only time that I have seen a man at the top there who believes that Nigerians if properly managed can do as much a nationals of other successful countries. Look at the Treasury Single Account for instance, he put in place – it's a fantastic way of managing our resources and the civil servants don't like it at all because they cannot take all the money they were taking before. Look at budget padding in the National Assembly – they don't like Buhari because he does not allow them to pad budgets and add money for themselves, Saraki had said before that he spent so much money campaigning for APC but since he went to Senate he has not benefitted anything, that he has not got any returns for that investment. Didn't he say so? How did he expect to get the returns? It was to pad budgets because they have been used to budget padding. In the past before they pass any bill, the Executive will carry bags of money to them. Buhari has stopped all of that and that is how it should be. In Great Britain, America and Europe you will see that the parliamentarians live on their own allowances. Here they don't leave on their own allowances. There are so many problems in this country to be solved and it requires somebody like Buhari to do it because he is determined to do it. This is what the media should be telling the common people. Let them know that Buhari is putting structures in place to get a better Nigeria.
Take a look at Obong Nsima Ekere's manifesto and you will see foresight and intelligence for a better and brighter Akwa Ibom. Nsima Ekere is a good manager, a performer, result oriented person. He is quality conscious, he does his things well. So, if you have such a man as Governor of this State, Akwa Ibom State will be a state of quality. All those things he said he would do, the money will be there because he won't be squandering the money.
What does Udom Emmanuel do with N17billion monthly when he is not paying pensioners, retirees and school teachers.
After the primaries of your Party, there are still aspirants who are aggrieved, how do you hope to assuage their anger?
Human beings are individuals and they have their reasons for doing certain things. Politics whether you like it or not is a game of self interest. We want to be counted, as I am the leader of the Party in the State, many other people want to be the leader of the Party in the State. so, there will always be disgruntlement.
But the beauty of it which I told you that makes me happy is that upon all these disgruntlement, we have decided to come together. All the aggrieved and unaggrieved members have decided to come together for a common purpose and that common purpose is to get APC to win in the State massively, that is 100%. When we have done that, every other thing will be resolved. Each individual party member has his own interest and it is when this party wins election that these interests will be handled. From Nsima Ekere's manifesto you can see that everybody will be busy, from the high to low to uneducated and educated. So, there are no more aggrieved members, they have sunk their difference for the interest of APC in the State.
The State Governor and PDP have called for the removal of the new Commissioner of Police. But in your assessment do you think the Police Chief can handle issues peacefully especially during electioneering and election period?
The Commissioner of police is not an employee of a Party. He is from the Nigerian Police Force, not PDP Police Force or APC Police Force or any Party's Police Force.
And it is the police force headquarters that deploys policemen to all parts of the country to go and maintain law and order and that is their interest. But if you go and steal and they come to arrest you and you raise alarm that it is because he does not like you due to the fact that you know somebody who stole but was not arrested; that kind of excuse cannot be considered in a theft case. The police is here to keep law and order. The Police is there to maintain peace and in doing that, some feathers may be ruffled, some toes may be trampled upon; that is natural but that does not mean that they are not doing their work.
Naturally, you cannot satisfy everybody in a system anywhere. Have you been watching television and you see the action of policemen even in France when people are going on protest?
In America, beat traffic light and you would be shot by the Police but if it happens in Nigeria people will say it is because such person is PDP or APC or so, so and so party member. When you are maintaining law and order and doing the right thing some people may be injured and others may not be.
But I want to tell you that there is no policeman sent to this State that will come and become a party man. The only one I can remember who got involved with politics is Gabriel Achong and I confronted him with facts on it. In 2015 election, the PDP used him a lot.
The Commissioner of Police in Akwa Ibom is doing his work to maintain law and order. If the Commissioner did not mobilize men to the House of Assembly on that day when the Governor himself went to the Assembly with thugs and security men who were shooting, people will definitely have been killed, it is because he mobilized policemen to protect citizens that government does not like him.
The Governor must realize that he is the Chief Security Officer of the State and not Chief Security Officer of PDP. How could the Governor had gone to the Assembly to attack APC lawmakers and by extension their constituents and yet he expects those constituencies to vote for him – it will not happen.
Every time I go to the airport I feel very bad when I look by my left and see what is called Green House plantation. Green House plantation in the tropical rain forest region? Here we have high temperatures and we are doing Green House plantation for tomatoes. We don't have electricity and we have to provide a conducive enclosure for tomatoes to grow. When you pass that place, how many Akwa Ibomites do you see working. How many households in Akwa Ibom State use raw tomatoes to cook? Where is the factory to turn that tomatoes to tomato paste. It is all a gimmick of taking money. Could you imagine Green House Plantation in tropical rain forest region? It does not happen. In Holland it is done because it is a cold country, snowing every day. And because of the snow vegetable like that cannot grow. So they build covered houses to control the temperature to grow tomato.
Where are we exporting Akwa Ibom tomato to?
If you watch television, you will see that the countries that produce tomato have what is called “Annual tomato fight” because they don't know what to do with all the tomato they grow. They use it to stone each other. But here we are doing Green House to grow tomato. I have said before that Udom was an Auditor who stayed in one room to look at ledgers and balance invoices. So I don't know who advised him to do Green House.
It is a serious eyesore and when white men pass there they laugh at us. It affects us because people will think that we have no brains.
©The Sensor Newspaper
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