WHERE THE POPULAR WILL MATTERS

Jonathan Akpan writes that Governor Udom Emmanuel is committed to serving his people in peace

It is the duty of any chief executive, especially in a political atmosphere, to change the course of history. That accounts for the six plus years of Udom Emmanuel as the top servant in Akwa Ibom state.

He found no other time to tell the story. In a period of peace, he broadcast a message to let the people remember what good thing had happened to them since he became governor. “Anyone, and I repeat anyone, who, for selfish political purposes, wants to reverse this peace must and will be rejected.” Making sure that his people got his drift, he emphasised: “Anyone who aims to grab power through the instrument of violence must be stopped and rejected.”

An Emmanuel downstairs is invoking the Emmanuel upstairs and saying, God with us.

Such a statement was at once a projection of achievement as it was a warning. His predecessor, Godswill Akpabio, was noted for his boasts about infrastructural achievement. But he was silent about what he did not do: he did not govern in peace.

Now he is in the centre where the federal government is praised for the achievement of infrastructural imprints in roads and rail, and his ministers Babatunde Fashola and Rotimi Amaechi, have been leading lights in the regard.

Yet we can see that the reign of bandits and religious extremists are making mincemeat of those work. You can make a big house of luxury and fill it with termites and worms.

That is the essence of what Governor Emmanuel was saying. It is easy to take peace for granted. It is easy to go to church in fancy clothes and shoes and in the hue of family bliss and return to a lunch in peace. It is easy to go the farm, to the office, and not look over your shoulders. It is easy to do a political campaign and other forms of such retailing and not bemoan one’s ambition because gunmen are not stalking, and body bags and blood stains are not consequences of any such outings.

But the opposite became routine once upon a time.

But in the past half a decade, the state has had these good times, close to halcyon times, though not perfect. Fear has not made anyone tremble. When there is peace, there is more assured development.

What the predecessor did with violence looming, the present man is doing more in tranquillity. For infrastructure, we can see he has been constructing roads of impactful nature across the state, and pivotal about that is the fact that he has been able to link not only with major arteries but he can connect smoothly its neighbours like Abia and Cross River States. Earlier in 2021, Emmanuel and Okezie Ikpeazu met to cut the tape and launch the express.

So the idea of his broadcast was about the spirit of Christmas, and he was trying to impress upon his fellow citizens that the spirit of Christmas is emblematised in the words of the angel who proclaimed that the birth of the Lord and saviour Jesus Christ was to bring a blessedness of peace and goodwill towards all. That was the spirit with which he had wanted to govern from day one, and that spirit has succeeded up till to day.

There is no peace in roads no matter how smooth that lead to slaughter and Golgotha. But the peace that passeth all understanding is the sort of peace that brings goodwill.

It was in that spirit that he has overcome the enemies of that state. Because no one in the state loves the violence of death and blood, they have transmuted violence into another platform: the social media.

Those who are familiar with the happenings in the state know that it is now the cowardly turn of those who wish the state no good. For instance, a recent online medium peddled the story that the state had not paid pensions whereas the state is up to date in that regard. They cannot even distinguish pension and gratuities. They were inspired in their malice by a report that Governor Zulum of Borno State had announced his payment of pensions. But they forgot that before Zulum, there was Emmanuel, and the old and retired people of Akwa Ibom enjoyed their pensions before the old and retired people of Borno. But one of the media outlets that peddled this falsehood actually was rigged into an award in the state even though the trustees of that award did not recognise online media as part of the candidates for the accolades.

That is the state of journalistic perversion in the state that must be checked. Even if the liars say the old people did not get their pensions, their bank alerts did not lie and the resulting plate of foofoo and afang on their dinner tables cannot be fiction. Lies can only travel so far.

We can also say that better is the killer online than the murderer on the streets. The lies online, however, can be asinine; they can cause deaths on the streets. But they can be overthrown with facts and counter-logic. Evidence of that is now being seen in the cyberspace.

But online lies cannot change the facts that roads have been multiplied. They ride on them in peace and see them. They see peace on those roads and not slaughter and mayhem.

If you look in the air in the state, there is a skyscraper, one of the tallest in the country. It is billed to be the smartest in the sub-region. It is the one launched by Vice President Yemi Osinbajo. It was a promise kept by the state governor. The oil majors had been urged to move over to the state with their staff and bureaucracy. They make their wealth there but spend it elsewhere in Lagos and Abuja. Their complaint was that they did not have the structure. The governor has given them one.

The consequence of that is immense. The state will attract a tribe of high-earners who will have to spend into the state economy. The taxes will accrue to that economy, and the spinoffs in entrepreneurs and development dollars are hard to miscalculate. Again, a low-density estate is underway on the way to the city that has attracted the oil majors for their key employees.

Going farther into the air, we all know of the Ibom Air. From being a fringe flyer, it has grown into one of Nigeria’s major airlines. With deals recently, the fleet of CRJ 900 Bombardier jets has glittered skies. Ten brand-new ones have been signed and they are bringing the fleet to 17.

What this means is that we are seeing the move of the spirit of Christmas. It is of peace and princely development.

It is also the spirit of the other Emmanuel. Or shall we say, it is in the order of the Emmanuel.