Call this a letter of extreme caution to the PDP and National Chairman, Senator Iyorchia Ayu and you won’t be far from the mark. Beyond just the chairman, the PDP presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the National Executive Committee (NEC), the National Working Committee (NWC), and the entire architecture of the PDP leadership, elders and other stakeholders across the country must also be interested in the content of this piece because it is about to foretell what is most likely to befall the leading opposition party in the country unless they immediately weigh in and stop the absurdity playing out in the party in Akwa Ibom State where there is a clear attempt to ridicule the former ruling party before the public, present it as a lawless organisation that is incapable of conducting simple due diligence on those who seek to use its platform to seek positions of leadership and ultimately, hand the state over to the opposition who would all be too grateful to take over the state they had long coveted. Also in this presentation is a clear path to redemption which the party can take advantage of for assured victory in the 2023 guber election.
The subject of interest here is the individual named “Pastor” Umo Eno who clearly hoodwinked the party to pick its governorship ticket ahead of the 2023 general elections with series of clearly forged credentials and duplicitous claims. To be clear, that a man with very-difficult-to-disprove allegations of certificate forgery, impersonation and other manifest fraud managed to grab the governorship ticket in a party with an abundance of honest, competent and baggage-free individuals tells a very frightening story about the leadership recruitment process which one should not expect of a matured and established political institution like the PDP.
The Peoples Democratic Party has proven to be the most resilient political organisation in the nation’s history; one that has an abundance of institutional memory not to be making some amateur mistakes. In the case of Umo Eno, a more thorough scrutiny could have saved the party the embarrassment of having to be dragged to court as a co-defendant in a case of multiple forgeries and impersonation against the man whom it handed its guber ticket to.
Was the PDP gubernatorial screening committee, the one that cleared Eno to contest for the primaries, unaware of the implications of allowing an individual with questionable claims regarding his age, secondary school attended, voter’s card, date of graduation and what O-level qualifications he obtained to be an aspirant in its primary election? For the uninitiated, there are strong allegations, as sighted in a court papers and petition filed by Akan Okon, that Umo Eno may not be really who he claimed he is. Documented evidence showed that Eno claims three dates of birth, 24/25 April 1964 and January 1, 1964. How could this be? How about the claim by the lead defendant in the suit filed by Okon that he spent six years in secondary school at a time when the education system in the country only made provision for 5 years; the 6-5-4 system? Independent investigations also showed that the signature and the serial number arrangement on Eno’s presented O-level result were very dissimilar from those of his supposed peers. Why? So there are lots of questions that the PDP screening committee could have asked this aspirant at the time but they were certainly glossed over. Shall one also talk about his voter’s card which is riddled with question marks?
His work history and claims of being a banking officer with Union Bank in 1982 when clearly, he did not even have a secondary school certificate.
If Eno, as demonstrated by information in the public domain, is beset by several worrying chronicles bordering on criminality which can be proven by a diligent court process, why is the PDP risking him as their candidate knowing that the opposition could take advantage of it all and capture Akwa Ibom to itself? What happens if few days to the election or even after victory had been won by the PDP, a similar ruling that aborted the governorship dream of David Lyon of the APC at the eleventh hour is given against the PDP and its candidate? If the court can sack the governor-elect belonging to the ruling party, why is anyone under any illusion that the same judiciary would waste a second in doing the needful if it is proven that PDP’s Umo Eno is guilty of presenting a forged certificate to INEC? Would anyone accuse the powers-that-be of witch-hunting the PDP if the state is lost to the opposition in 2023? The PDP needs to carefully weigh its options ahead of the next guber poll and be certain that it is not setting itself up for a certain fall at a time when the opposition is waiting by the wings to swoop. Clearly, the choice before the decision-makers at Wadata Plaza is a very simple one: take the path of honour by reconsidering its decision regarding the party’s guber candidate in Akwa Ibom and refuse to be goaded into the path of oblivion in the state. Frankly speaking, “Pastor” Umo Eno should be berated, reprimanded, penalized and expelled from the party for bringing shame and disrepute to our great party also for misleading and deceiving the good people of Akwa Ibom state PDP as well as trying to embarrass our dear governor Udom Emmanuel, Who obviously means well for the state. The leaders of the PDP should simply look at the facts before it and do the needful by selecting from its abundance of competent aspirants, an individual who would not be distracted by legal hurdles at every step of the way; one who instead would focus on selling the party’s manifesto of holistic development, law and order in a state that has remained a PDP stronghold for the last 24 years.
For the purpose of clarity, most political watchers in Nigeria appreciate what the name “Iyorchia Ayu” represents in our polity. A seasoned politician whose name is synonymous with integrity, forthrightness and strict adherence to rules, a founding member of the PDP who has remained faithful to the party’s agenda for much of the last 24 years, Senator Ayu, one believes, knows what is best for his beloved PDP in Akwa Ibom at a time such as this. This author is certain that the PDP national chairman has the proven capacity to make the right judgment and abort the unholy plots by some highly placed but superstitious elements within the party to wreck it and hand power over to the opposition next year. No mistakes must be made; this is clearly not about any individual however powerful they may be. It is about the party, its future and most importantly, the Akwa Ibom people and their destiny. Akwa Ibom and its people have fared very well under the PDP and witnessed the greatest stretch of continuity of development in its history. Will it be fair to let the greedy, directionless and anti-development opposition to take over through the backdoor? The choice is for the PDP to make.
Additionally, the PDP presidential candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has to be very much interested in these developments. The Akwa Ibom people have voted PDP in perpetuity since the starting of this current democratic dispensation (1999) but that is because the party had been careful not to make the kind of costly mistake the candidature of Umo Eno would represent. The Akwa Ibom state chapter of the PDP had always gotten its act right with regard to choice of candidates which has enable it to present a united front, capable of keeping the opposition very irrelevant in the political process in the state. Things could however go south this time unless the brewing crises the Eno candidature portends is immediately resolved by simply doing what is right and commonsensical. Clearly, the PDP presidential candidate needs every stakeholder singing the same tune, not the discordant tune that the candidature of “Pastor” Umo Eno would represent.
Should it happen that the PDP candidate is disqualified by the courts or affected by any unfavourable decision taken by INEC who had been granted additional powers by the new electoral act, the morale of the party supporters would be so dampened that even the most fervent followers of the party would keep their distance or quietly work for the opposition in the presidential election. The Atiku presidential bid could be undone by this in a state many pundits had already called for the former vice president even before the first ballot is cast. The good news however is that the there is still a window of opportunity for redemption. Fortunately for the PDP, it just so happens that the aspirant who came second in the guber primaries in the state is an accomplished technocrat, project manager and administrator of note named Akan Okon.
in an election, Akan’s participation in every step of the processes leading to the final selection of the candidate gives him an edge over all others. The PDP then should avoid a legal landmine by giving priority consideration to Mr. Okon as it seeks to find a more qualified, suitable, and accomplished individual to fly its flag in next year’s governorship election.
Okon has been a part of everything great that has happened in Akwa Ibom state in the last decade. A commissioner in several strategic ministries, he has been directly involved in the conception, planning, execution and commissioning of several landmark projects in the state including the 21 story Dakkada Towers commissioned by Nigeria’s vice president, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, setting up and launching of Ibom Air project which has become a major player in the country’s aviation industry, construction and completion of several power sector infrastructure, construction of commercial building at the Victor Attah International Airport, the actualisation of the Ibom Deep Seaport Project, construction of automobile assembling plant at Itu LGA of the state amongst several other key projects that are today defining the economic landscape of Akwa Ibom. A consummate team player, Okon is also a member of several important committees and strategic boards of government agencies including serving as the Akwa Ibom State coordinator of the Nigeria-COVID-19 Action Recovery and Stimulus, board member, Victor Attah International Airport amongst others.
Sincerely, one can rightly argue that Okon is a giant piece of diamond within the PDP family who has worked side by side with the current governor Udom Emmanuel as colleagues in the cabinet of Former Governor Godswill Akpabio and also worked for the past seven years as commissioner and in various capacities in the Udom Emmanuel government, whom he shares long standing close friendship spanning well over 3 decades, needless to say putting Akan Okon on the ballot will ensure continuity, progress, cohesion, assiduity and protraction of the wonderous achievements of Gov. Udom’s administration which must be coveted and set to shine for the whole world to see.
The party has no reason to get itself into avoidable crises that would ruin its comfortable, assured victory status in Akwa Ibom, not when it has gems like Okon in its fold. A stitch in time they say saves nine. This author is optimistic that the Senator Ayu-led national working committee (NWC) of the PDP knows what to do for an assured victory in the 2023 guber race in Akwa Ibom. Again, it can also overlook the danger signals and ultimately suffer the same fate that robbed its rival of victory in nearby Bayelsa. The key argument is this: if the PDP profited from the misfortune suffered by the APC as a result of certificate forgery in Bayelsa, it can also be a victim in Akwa Ibom if it does not get its acts together ahead of the 2023 guber race. Again, the choice is for Senator Ayu, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the NEC, NWC, Board of Trustees and other critical stakeholders in the party to make.
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