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 Daily Independent Online.
* Friday,July 16, 2004.
A’Ibom has no respect
for constitutional orders --Ntekim
Few people knew the stuff he
was made of until the day he stood eyeball-to-eyeball against Obong
Victor Attah, the governor of Akwa Ibom State. Thereafter, the People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) and the entire people of the state discovered that
Ekpenyong Ntekim was a no-nonsense man. He squared up against what he
called the acrimonious tendencies of the governor. Today, Ntekim presides
over the affairs of the All Nigeria People’s Party (ANPP) in Akwa Ibom
State. In this interview with our Correspondent,
Rotimi Durojaiye, Ntekim, a lawyer, former chairman of the Nigerian Bar
Association (NBA) in the state, and a former chairman of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State, speaks
extensively on why he fell apart with Attah and plans by the latter to pocket the government and
the ruling party in Akwa Ibom Sstate. Excerpts:
As the Akwa Ibom State chairman of the All Nigeria People’s Party
(ANPP), how would you assess the performance of the People’s Democratic
Party (PDP) in the state since the party was voted into power for a
second term in 2003?
There is no basis for any assessment
because we have not found anything materially different in the last five
years, except in a bold effort to prepare the governor’s anointed son,
whether son in terms of son-in-law, or otherwise, to succeed him. That’s
the only remarkable difference we have observed. But that is not anyway
the basis for assessment.
Are you saying that the governor is already grooming
a successor?
That has come to public knowledge since
the end of his first four years!
You are saying, in a nutshell, that there is nothing
concrete or visible in the state in terms of infrastructural, social and
economic development?
Nil. Precisely none.
But it is supposed to be one of the richest states in Nigeria in
terms of revenue allocation from the Federal Government. Are you saying
that the huge revenue cannot be justified?
That is the supposition. The state is
supposed to be one of the richest in the country. In fact, on paper, it
is one of the richest, but in practice, one of the poorest, because what
we have in terms of allocations are not reflected in infrastructural
development. They probably exist only in the media.
The issue of parliamentary system of government at
the local government level in your state is a burning issue now. Is your
party comfortable with that system?
We have never been comfortable with it.
That was why we went to court long before the elections (the local
government elections). We saw this situation well ahead of the state
government. In fact, the government made funny guidelines contrary to the
existing Local Government Laws 2000 in Akwa Ibom State. We took them to
court that the guidelines their election commission issued conflicted
with the applicable local government laws. Now, to cover up that
situation, they came into the court to defend the action with forged
laws, claiming there had been a new set of laws promulgated in 2003 on
the basis of parliamentary system which provided for no position of a
chairman. This is now the nemesis that has caught up with them because what
they wanted to do by announcing the candidates without elections failed
by that action and they got themselves foisted with the laws they never
made, not providing for the position of chairman. Now they have been
forced to go into that election with the purported laws that they
attached. Now, that is the situation that has caught up with them. Akwa
Ibom State is so different from other states in Nigeria in a number of
respects and this is only one of them. Akwa Ibom State government has no
respect for constitutional order.
How?
I don’t even think we are running a
presidential system of government in the state
But the governor and members of the State House of
Assembly were elected by the people.
Fine, you may talk of the governor. Yes,
that is in theory. But in practice, what is happening? We are either
running a system where you have the governor in the person of His
Excellency, Obong Victor Attah; the Deputy Governor, in the person of His
Excellency the Commissioner for Works, Bob Ekarika (the governor’s
son-in-law), and then the Assistant Governor, His Excellency, Christopher
Ekpenyong. Or you have His Imperial Lordship, in the person of Obong
Victor Attah, then the Executive Governor is Bob Ekarika, and the deputy
is Christopher Ekpenyong. That is what is happening in Akwa Ibom State
today. The man that is generally acclaimed as the Deputy Governor has no
functions.
Are you saying that in terms of constitutional
hierarchy, there is somebody between the governor and his deputy?
Which deputy governor are you talking
about?
Christopher Ekpenyong is supposed to be the
constitutionally recognised deputy governor of the state.
Please, quote me that Christopher
Ekpenyong is in practice not the deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State. That
is why I said there is no constitutional order in the state. In fact, we
don’t know what system of government they are running. Rather, what I see
is a family government that is in practice. It is that approach which
they successfully executed at the state level that influenced them to
cause the mess for the local government. In fact, the local governments
today have no functional systems. What they are even implementing is not
presidential and it is not parliamentary. It is no system at all. You
have a bundle or collections of persons called councillors who sit down
in a rudderless manner because there is no king amongst them. If it is a
parliamentary system, the person with the highest numbers of elected
members of his party will become the leader.
Is that not the situation now?
It is not the situation because again you
have a further election in an election to elect what you now know as head
of council. In fact, in other words, the established constitutional
structures have now been completely demolished in favour of their own
chosen system in compliance with the disorder and mess. You have a head
of council. While all other parts of the federation have council
chairmen, we are talking of head of council in Akwa Ibom State. Which council?
In other words, we have no chairmen. What the elected councillors did was
to appoint a leader of the councillors, not a chairman. These are
completely outrageous systems that we have been forced to live with.
How long do you want to continue to tolerate these
systems? How do you intend to rescue the state and the people from these
predicaments?
Well, the system will rescue itself. We
are part of the system. We are also engineering some efforts. We are
pioneering efforts in some other directions to attain the same goal, but
it will be difficult, please permit me to disclose our efforts.
Why did you decamp from the PDP to the ANPP?
Because Attah was becoming too
acrimonious. I left in 2001 because he believed that he could pocket the
government and the party and I couldn’t tolerate such autocratic
tendencies. In particular, he was putting projects in calendar status and
I knew we were not going to make any headway with that approach. I am
vindicated today. I am comfortable with the ANPP.
What led to the defeat of your party in the state
during the last general elections? Were you not prepared?
We were very prepared. But as we have
always said, there was no election. What the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) did was to sit down and make announcements,
imaginary votes procured in its inner offices throughout the federation.
What the opposition is saying is that you lost the
elections because you presented an unpopular candidate in the state.
In terms of popularity, personally, the
PDP incumbent governor could not match the popularity of our candidate
Dr. Ime Umanah. On the basis of popularity, you cannot rate the PDP
candidate with our candidate.
So you are insisting there was no election?
Yes, there was no election. The election
was massively rigged in the sense that all the elections were conducted
in one office, just one room, and up till now it has not been disputed
that soldiers rigged the elections in the Banquet Hall of the Government
House in Uyo.
Do you have facts to buttress your allegations?
We have all the facts. We have already
written to INEC, to all the security agencies and they have not rebutted
these assertions.
Your party forwarded a petition to the National
Judicial Council (NJC) alleging that the victory of Governor Attah at the
Akwa Ibom Elections Petition Tribunal on July 14, 2003, was purchased.
Are you still convinced that the tribunal members received financial
inducement from a particular top government functionary in the state?
We stand by our allegations against those
tribunal members. But I don’t want to say anything more on that because
the matter is subjudice. But we stand by our assertions.
It was reported by a newspaper recently that your
governorship candidate in last year’s elections had always ruined companies
presided over by him since the creation of the state. Instances were
given in the cases of Sunshine Batteries Limited, Champion Breweries
Limited and Palmil Limited. What kind of an industrialist is Dr. Umanah?
I don’t like dwelling on the realms of
rumours and imaginations. It is completely false in the first place. If
we talk of Champion Breweries Limited where Dr. Umanah was on the board
for quite a while, he left that company in credit and solidly on its own
footing. The company died long after he had left, so that insinuation
cannot be correct. Was he at Quality Ceramics? Was he there? What about
the Asbestos Industries in Oron, Qua Steel in Eket or International
Biscuits in Ikot Ekpene, was he there? These are all dead companies. The
attitude of the governments after the creation of the state killed all
the companies. The state inherited quite a number of companies when it
was carved out of Cross River State in 1987, but all died. The death of
these companies, even the ones mentioned, is a typical ailment of most
government companies in the state. The singular exception probably is
Champion Breweries where those in the helm of affairs in Akwa Ibom State
now are the investors themselves. They are not interested in reactivating
any of the other companies across the state.
How did he perform in Sunshine Batteries Limited and
Palmil?
These are all absolute rubbish. I’ll give
you the same answer. Is it just because Dr.Umanah happened to have very
limited access to Sunshine Batteries Limited that the company died? If
there is that myth, why is it possible for Champion Breweries to be
reactivated? If anything he touches dies, why was Champion Breweries
Limited resurrected? Why can’t they resurrect other companies? Like I
asked, was he also in the Asbestos Company in Oron, or Quality Ceramics
in Itu, or International Biscuits in Ikot Ekpene or Qua Steel in Eket
which all died at about the same time and still remain dead today? All
these companies have a common history. They were established at about the
same time and died at about the same time too. People should live above
these useless insinuations. Those who are behind all these have no
concrete thing to tell the people, they resort to character assassination.
Do you think there is a personality clash between
Dr. Umanah and Governor Attah?
No, no, no. Far from it! I want to think
that those who are advocating against him (Umanah) are doing so on the
basis of sentiments. They are completely instrumental to the decay in
Akwa Ibom State, and they are profiting from it. These are choristers to
the governor and the more they sing for him, the more they believe that
he will shower them with his blessings. So, we pity them, and we pity
Akwa Ibom State. They are carrying these things a bit too far. They are
also emotionally charged. In every contest, there must be at least two
persons and Akwa Ibom State is not anybody’s kingdom where we have to sit
down and dole out the state to whoever. We are not running imperialism.
Is it true that Umanah got contracts from the state
government and refused to execute such?
Let them publish the details. We
challenge them. What are the contracts? Name them. Name the value. Name
what they paid him and what is left. It is very easy to sit down and make
allegations, but it is very difficult to substantiate them. We challenge
whoever has details of these negative things against him to publish the
details for God’s sake. Don’t sit down and make general allegations. I
can sit down here now and say that Governor Attah has embezzled the
entire allocations of Akwa Ibom State for the last six months. I must be
able to substantiate that, people should stop being funny with facts.
Will the ANPP still participate in 2007 elections in
Akwa Ibom State?
Definitely. We will.
Will you still be fielding Dr. Umanah?
It is too early to say that.
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