By: Ezechukwu N. Obonna
)It has become imperative to respond, with facts and with fury, to the unguarded, unstatesmanlike, and utterly hypocritical outburst of the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio.
At a solemn occasion that should have been devoted to the inauguration of the Presidential Campaign Council of our great party and our President, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Senator Akpabio chose to turn a national stage into a theatre of petty vendetta. In a thinly veiled, yet unmistakably targeted jab at His Excellency, Distinguished Senator Hope Uzodimma, the Senate President declared that governors should not abandon their people to seek a position that is not available. This literally implies that the ambition of Senator Hope Uzodimma to run for the Senate Presidency is dead on arrival because, according to him, the Constitution guarantees a second tenure of eight years for governors and because he has always won in his 25 years in politics.
This statement is not only constitutionally illiterate; it is morally bankrupt and politically arrogant in its most putrid form.
First, let us address the constitutional grandstanding. Which constitution did Senator Akpabio quote that forbids a performing governor from aspiring to the Senate? Which section of the Nigerian Constitution declares that a governor must compulsorily serve eight years even when he chooses, within the ambit of the law, to seek higher legislative service for his people? Governor Hope Uzodimma has not abandoned the Imo people; he has elevated Imo to national reckoning, making the state the heartbeat of the South-East and the pillar of the APC. Aspiration is not abandonment.
Second, the irony is sickening. Senator Godswill Akpabio is himself a former Governor of Akwa Ibom State for eight years. After his eight years, he did not go into retirement; he ran for the Senate. He became Senate Minority Leader. He later abandoned his Senate seat to become a Minister. He then abandoned the Ministry to contest for President. He then returned to contest for the Senate again to become Senate President. By what moral right does a serial political tourist and office-chaser accuse another man of ambition?
Senator Akpabio boasted that he has been winning elections for 25 years. We dare to remind him that political history is littered with men who won until they lost. No one wins forever. Power is ephemeral. The same Nigerians who voted for you can vote you out. The same Senate you now lord over can impeach you. Invincibility is an illusion that only consumes the arrogant.
Senator Hope Uzodimma’s ambition is not dead on arrival. What is dead on arrival is the politics of intimidation, blackmail, and territorial gangsterism that Akpabio is trying to introduce into the 10th Senate. The Office of the Senate President is not a personal inheritance. It is not a family stool in Akwa Ibom. It is not a reward for 25 years of political maneuvering. It is an office that belongs to all Senators and must be contested.
If the Senate President is so confident of his 25-year winning streak, let him allow a free and fair contest. Let him not resort to pre-emptive threats and presidential campaign podiums to fight his personal battles.
Governor Uzodimma has not declared war on Akpabio. But if Akpabio has declared war on Uzodimma, he has chosen to fight a man who has never lost a political battle he believed in, a man backed by the genuine love of his people.
Let it be known: No man owns the Senate, and no man can bury the Hope of a people whose time has come.
Hon. Chief Ezechukwu N. Obonna (Papamunchies) is the Special Adviser On Narcotics And Illicit Drugs MonitoringÂ
