Umo Eno’s Opportunity for Self-Actualization Versus Targeted ‘Generosity’

Umo Robinson, Media Aide to the Akwa Ibom State Deputy Governor highlights the damning inclination of the average Akwa Ibomite to judge leaders by their quality of being kind, even if it is designed to impress


There is something fortuitous about the fact that May, 2022, has not merely yielded its usual Workers Day celebration, but that the event afforded the theme: “Labour, Politics and the Quest For Good Governance,” which is a fitting herald to the party primaries for the 2023 general election – the field-equivalent of the theoretical quest initiated by workers on May Day.
Indeed, arrival at the terminus of good governance has always come as the result of a quest – a sustained and rigorous one at that! And the history of political thought and practice bears out this position.
From the democratic fountain-head in Plato’s Ideal State in the ancient Greek Polis, to modern benevolent autocracies, it has been one big quest, deploying socio-political engineering to circumvent the deleterious effects of human selfishness and acquisitiveness on society. In places where the quest has been successful, a perfectly constituted political community has been forged. Such communities have been harmonious, stable and affording the greatest good for the greatest number.
No wonder it is said that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty and its many benefits. But in our state – Akwa Ibom – and country, this vigilance is abysmally low. The situation has allowed for the festering of terrible notions of governance, particularly the notion conveyed in the remark: “Isinoho Owo Mkpo” (he does not give), which the average Akwa Ibom person has adopted hook, line and sinker as yard-stick for the screening of leadership materials.
It is a measure of the concern generated by the faulty sense of value underlying our people’s preference for alms from would-be and extant political office-holders, that Pastor Umo Bassey Eno, a leading Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship aspirant in the state, recently cried out against the charge by his opponents that he does not give.
From the pulpit of his church, the All Nations Christian Ministries International in Eket, during his 58th birthday anniversary last month, the clergy lashed out at his traducers: “How else do I give?” he queried.  “If as a private entrepreneur, I spend about N25 million  every month as salary for more than 1000 workers who have consequently been able to get married and run their families, build their personal houses and actualize themselves sustainably in other ways, how else do I give?”  
Annually, that is about N300million  injected into the economy of the state in the last two or so decades – so, for those who asked: ‘who is he and where has he been?’, let the man again speak for himself: “…friends, I have been around and working quietly for the people of Akwa Ibom State – perhaps longer than any of my opponents has been.”
There, indeed, is the crux! As praise-worthy as proven and genuine gestures of charity can be, it must be stressed that they are not as dependable a good-governance guarantee as the social-contract scheme adopted by serious and productive democracies. Otherwise, the Chinese would not say: “don’t give me fish; but teach me how to fish”. Loosely defined, the social contract theory  involves an agreement by the people to collectively evolve a political authority by which they are governed on agreed terms, “governed” here implying the  harnessing of the commonwealth and deploying same for the common good.
In charity, the people are at the mercy of the usurpers of the commonwealth, whereas in the social contract, delivery of good governance is compelled by the force of an obligation. Yes, “usurpers of the commonwealth” – because these “givers” in government had, prior to their apparition on the public-space, posted no history of philanthropy. It means that their much-vaunted generosity – targeted as it is – is funded solely by looted funds which rightly belong to the people.
Again, the tragedy of embarking on leadership recruitment on the basis of the philanthropic competence of the applicant, may be further illustrated by the analogy in which a hospital board decides to hire the man most capable of lavishing its members with gifts, for a critical heart-transplant case; without as much as referring to the man’s academic qualifications or reviewing his practice record in cardiology. “Out-of-this-world!,” “penny-wise and pound foolish!”, one would say as description for the board’s behavior. And even that  would be putting the matter rather mildly!
Yet, this is exactly what our people do at every election cycle. And in response, Joseph Marie De Maistre, the 18th century Savoyard philosopher and writer, weighs in posthumously with this verdict: “in a democracy, the people end up with the government and leaders they deserve.” It means that if democracy has failed to be a force for the common good in Nigeria, the people are to blame because of a preponderantly faulty sense of value.
But luckily in Akwa Ibom State, Governor Udom Emmanuel is changing the paradigm by insisting that we shun instant gratification, get our priorities right in order to be able to look at the wealth-creation antecedents of our leadership applicants. In carrying out his own leadership mandate as governor of the state, Mr. Emmanuel has pointed the way in terms of what to look for as criterion for responsible and productive leadership – exactly what Pastor Umo Bassey Eno held up in his pulpit defense: “How else do I give? If as a private entrepreneur, I spend about 25 million naira every month as salary for more than a thousand workers …, how else do I give?”  
Today, as delegates of the PDP converge at the hallowed grounds of the ‘Nest of Champions’  for the historic assignment of recruiting the next governor of the state, may the echoes from this pulpit defense guide their hearts.