I don’t Expect Akpabio To be Christ – Former APC State Secretary
Dr. Effiong Etok, a cerebral
politician, is the immediate past Secretary of the All Progressives Congress, APC , Akwa Ibom State Chapter, and he is presently
the Director General of Akwa Ibom APC
foundation. In this interview with UBONGABASI ISE, our correspondent, Etok confessed
his initial fears regarding defectors that came into his party with Senator
Godswill Akpabio in 2018. But he would not hide his strong admiration for
Senator Godswill Akpabio as he believes that, as a minister, the former Senate minority
leader would be the best representative of Akwa Ibom State at the Federal
Executive Council after over 20 years of weak presence of the state at the centre
of Nigerian politics. Dr. Effiong Etok would not be happy with Akpabio if he
turns around to feed those that betrayed him in recent past, EXCERPT:
Let’s meet you sir
I am simply Dr. Effiong Etok,
the immediate past state Secretary of APC. Presently, I am the Director General,
Akwa Ibom APC foundation. These group members are mainly the aborigines that
are working to make sure the idea we had from the formation of ACN to APC is
not eroded. Furthermore, we are strongly in support of the state executive
party from the national, state, local government and to the ward levels. We are
working to ensure that we overlap, and have a synergy that would give us
overall success in all our electoral efforts. That is why we are encouraging
our members, using the old tactics that we used during ACN days, that is, the
approach to campaign, finance, and the belief we had in the progressives to
ensure that the approach is maintained. That is the essence of Akwa Ibom APC
Foundation. Not just for the aboriginal members, but we include every person
that has the progressive tendency as a member of this group.
You are talking about
progressivism as an ideology…?
Yes
So, would you say that new
members coming to the party are instilled with this ideology?
Sincerely, to go alone, we
cannot make it. You need the other shades of ideas to function. That is why I
said we are trying to have a synergy between whichever ideologies that any
member of the APC has. We are trying to have a synergy. If you are completely a
conservative, by the time we work together, somewhere along the line, you would
be shaped into becoming a liberal conservative, and not the extreme
conservative. By the time we relate with you over time, because APC, from all
indication, is a progressive political party, that progressive influence will
shape you to the extent that even if you are not completely forgotten about
your conservative ways, you become a liberal conservative. That would not be as
harmful as a conservative.
During campaign, a lot of pundits
claimed that almost all APC stalwarts are people from the conservative PDP, and
there is no way the APC would do something differently because they are the
same content with different brand names. Could the influence of the new members
change the scope of the party?
Well, they are free to have
their opinion. Just like I have stated before, so many of them crossed over to
APC, there is no harm for doing that. What is APC-PDP is a creation that is not
too far away from now. But what is important is every living person must learn
to improve upon whatever he believes he had been. I want to believe that if by
the time our brothers and sisters have crossed over to APC, after working for
one to three years, sincerely, they would not look like the very person known
when they were in PDP. It is the environment that, at times, gives somebody the
encouragement to do most of the things they had been doing. But if the
environment is not suitable, certainly, they tend to forget old things as they
continue to practice new ways over time. You cannot say APC and PDP are the
same. They are not the same.
When you were the Secretary of
APC, were orientations conducted for the new members to intimate them with the
doctrine of progressivism?
Yes. From the constitution and
the manifesto of our party, you can see that it is completely a different ball
game when compared to a conservative party. We make sure that our teeming
members have a say in what we are doing, and not a situation that you have a
few selected persons taking decisions on behalf of the rest. That has been the
practice of those in the conservative angle. But to us, from day one, a member
that is at the ward level must be given an opportunity to make his
contribution. So all these new members that are coming in, I must be frank, have
difficulties of adjusting immediately, but they have tried. We are not making
new constitution, the constitution is still the same, the manifesto is still
the same, and by the time they commit themselves to work with these documents,
they have no option but to adjust. There is no way we can look like the PDP.
You may be aware that before now,
there used to be a notion of a dichotomy in APC. Some members were referred to
as PDP in APC while others were simply pure APC, do you really have such dichotomy
in your party?
Naturally you should expect
that even in your house. There is nothing like that now, although there was an
attempted dichotomy (chuckles). Some of us wanted to distance ourselves from
new members because we were scared that they are going to bring over those
practices that we were against. We had no other option but to draw ourselves
closer and said let us work as a group. As God would have it, so many of them
that joined the party late now become members of Akwa Ibom APC Foundation. The
word, foundation, means the aborigines. But many new members are joining it. It
is a matter of location and platform that either encourages you to continue
with a particular practice. But by the time you change a location, and you are
faced with another reality, you have no other option than to change. The 'dichotomy'
that existed in 2018 is waning out. Anybody who is presently in this party, and
still carrying old mentality along, I think he's not being fair to our party.
In a party like this, you don't need to screen members at the point of entry,
but we work on them internally.
On Wednesday, 21st August 2019,
Senator Godswill Akpabio would be sworn in as the minister of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, he from Akwa Ibom State, what is your reaction to this
development?
In fact, it is one of the good
things that I personally had wished I should see during my lifetime. As a
group, APC foundation, we had already made our position known. We congratulated
Akpabio for coming in. I must say it has been a disappointment over the years
at the federal level, starting from 16 years when PDP was in power, including
last four years that had our own, Senator Udoma Udo Udoma who has just left the
ministerial position. Akwa Ibom State has not been faring any fine. We can't
say we truly enjoyed what had been happening at the national for that period.
That has to do with the quality of persons that represented Akwa Ibom State at
the federal executive council. I am confident in a character like His
Excellency, Senator Godswill Akpabio - we know his capacity; he had a capacity
as a governor, and performed well even when we condemned him when he was on the
other side. He went to the Senate, and was not a pushover. For the first time,
I couldn't believe it could happen that a first-timer, could push himself to
the extent of becoming number four person in the Senate. That's a feat. It
gives an impression that he is not a pushover. Now that he has been appointed
to represent Akwa Ibom State, I am convinced that the State is going to see a
new dawn through the people he is going to pick from the state to the national in
terms of employment, and other infrastructural development. I want to believe
that Akpabio I know, if any minister
would succeed, I think he's the one that would succeed. He is one of the
persons that would take the party to the next level, and Nigeria will not get
to that level while Akwa Ibom State still remain the way it is. As Nigeria is
getting to the next level, Akwa Ibom State will get to the next level too. I
and my teeming members celebrate and many people, without being told, are
moving to Abuja to celebrate with Akpabio. It is the best thing that has
happened for the past 20 years.
If you are to sit with Senator
Akpabio now, what would be your advice to him as he is going to the federal
executive council?
Number one, he's not a new
person (in politics). He has the full knowledge about the political situation
in Akwa Ibom State, including the economic situation in the state, and the
level of neglect. In the period we don't feel any federal presence in the
state, with Akpabio, we should tackle that because we need more federal
presence. We need the voice. Akwa Ibom State and of course Akpabio will do it.
He must do it except he is not the person we knew before. AkwaIbom State must
be well pronounced at the federal level. In all the projects that the federal
government would undertake, in fact, when they count 10, Akwa Ibom State must be one of the ten. He
must come back as an uncommon minister. He earned that name and he must not
drop it now that he has become a minister.
Before his nomination, was there
any sort of row in the party?
Akpabio is too big to the
extent that if he says he needs this, some of us would say no don't give him.
So anybody that might have raised the perceived negative feeling or anybody who
said no must be a failure. Naturally, we supposed to have people like that. But
if you give them the opportunity to say what they want to say, they would not
even have the courage to say it but can afford to say behind. Without being
critical or sentimental, Akpabio, I didn't like him before, but I was in love
with Akpabio from the time I noticed that he has performed an uncommon feat. No
matter bad how somebody is, there should be a specific area that you notice
that this person is good. Look at the rally, the day he decamped to the party,
so many people were sitting on the fence asking, should he come in? Should he
do this and that? But by the day he defected and declared formally as a member
of the party, I want to believe you were alive, you saw the crowd. Have you
ever seen that before? That is to prove to you that if you don't need that kind
of person, then you must be a daft; not only selfish you must be very wicked.
Look at the number of people that he brought into the party, who has ever done
that? Tell me who have ever brought that number of persons. Ok, for the
nomination, who contested the nomination with him for somebody to say you
rigged the nomination? He was returned unopposed in his senatorial district. So
before anybody is complaining and said, ‘oh I bought the form, I was shortchanged,
or I came out to contest and I was not allowed, I was an aspirant, he blocked
me, I bought the form, I did this, and the people wanted me,’ but in Ikot Ekpene
Senatorial district where Akpabio sought nomination and was nominated, I was
not aware of any other contestant. All others conceded to Akpabio. So the
question of people complaining that it was to our disadvantage, like I had
rightly said, Akpabio's transit to the party was to our advantage. What would
you have been expected if Udom that was so treacherous to work with INEC and do
us what he did, teamed up with Akpabio? It would have been a different story.
So Akpabio, to me and our party, is a big plus.
The outcome of 2019 general
elections is seriously in dispute. Candidates of APC, including Senator Akpabio
are in the tribunal at the moment. If at the end of the day, the tribunal's
ruling favours Akpabio, and he is given a nod to go to the Red Chambers, won't
there be a sort of conflict in the matter of choice? What do you think would be
the position of the party?
To be very simple, it's not
only Godswill Akpabio that is in court over the open robbery that (Mike) Igini laised
with the PDP to visit on him (Akpabio) and the APC. Akpabio contested the
election on the platform of APC. The tribunals are there to do justice, and
from all the records before the tribunal, I suppose not to comment but I
believe that they will win the cases and that Akpabio would be returned, and
not just Akpabio, APC would be returned. By the time we are on the other side
of the river, we will discuss. I won’t discuss on the details. Besides, I am
not the party; the party will sit down and Akpabio will sit down and discuss
the details. All that is needed now is let the tribunal do justice to the
injustice that Igini and PDP meted out to us.
How would you advise Senator
Akpabio as a minister on how to relate with those you may feel disappointed him
in the past?
Mention anybody that is
somebody today that did not achieve that via Akpabio. Some of these persons turned
around to bite the finger that fed them. Of course, you know the reward of such
people. It may not be immediate. To me, I would not expect Akpabio to be
Christ; I would not be happy with him if he turns around to feed again those he
took them to reasonable height, who could now know their way to somewhere. I
would not be too happy do so. This time around, he should concentrate on some
of us that he has not touched our lives. He should touch some of us. To the
other ones, in fact, he does not owe them apology, rather they are the ones to
apologize to him having been taken from the grass to where they are today, and
they decided to disappoint him. Even with God, you must go and say I have
offended you, and it is then Akpabio would say, ‘I have forgiven you.’ And even
with that, when they are forgiven, they should be given a seat at the back for
reasonable period of probation. You need to observe them because most of them might
rise again (chuckles).
Alright sir, is there any issue I
have not touched with my questions, which you might want the public to know
about? Please kindly address it now if there is any
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