JUST FOR THE RECORDS
LEST YOU ARE TRADED-OFF I have many times resisted the urge to write this open letter to you until recent political events in our state and the PDP are concluded but negative reward system for hard work and dedication compelled me to this option.
I know you are a team player, a man of great integrity, sincere and principled. I have several times altered you that politics, the Nigeria way is “a concentric layer of conspiracies wherein one is only used to protect a leader’s selfish interest and is traded off thereafter”. Deceit is the theme of the game, honesty is out of it irrespective of one’s status.
Those you look up to as your shield recently manifested the above traits, thereby confirming my persistent doubt of their sincerity to you. Even those you helped financed their election to the National Assembly, sustained and those you personally staked your esteemed honour to, to secure their freedom are now at the front burner of this madness to crucify you or sacrifice you politically for no just cause.
A number of times I had advised you against your gentle-man approach to politics. This, I did because I saw you putting your trust in the hands of the never-to-be-trusted leaders. I complained to you about your honesty, modesty and truthfulness to your mercenary friends. You over trusted both the national and state PDP leadership, and indeed over-relied on the President you have worked for. This may not be a bad virtue, where it to be in a civilized democracy where loyalty and those who propagate the system are rewarded or appreciated. Ours may never be such a place. A delegate election, which the PDP state chairman went on air to publicly declare free, fare and transparent, soon became fraudulent because it was later realized that you had a reasonable number of your supporters therein elected.
Sooner than later those you have always helped propagated and supervised its cancellation to please your traducers who claim they have all of the votes of CRS in their pocked. A false claim; but on 21st November 2014, even when a ruling of the court was expected and without respect for the rule of law, a rushed and hijacked delegate election was purportedly conducted. They did it alone and won it alone, but were shy to celebrate victory. God knows who is fooling who. I have reminded you time without numbers that you are a victim of high level conspiracy from your close political associates.
They sponsor others to blackmail you, sooner than later the anger of God will visit them and they will be publicly exposed. You recall that I had many times warned you against your over-reliance and sincerity on your political friends. I had always believed that at the end of their political journey the fear of your horizontal political growth will cause them to make some attempt to bring you down. It’s all happening now with speed. But be consoled that God is supreme.
I also recalled vividly that, as a deputy Senate Leader, Gov. Imoke publicly campaigned to our people that, you were an asset in the senate to Cross River State. But now that providence has further elevated you to be Senate Leader the same Imoke appears not to find you a valuable political asset again. This is strange logic and an attempt to stand common sense on the forehead. But the truth will soon be out.
I rarely trust political friends, because they are friends of convenience. They fizzle out into the thin air as soon as it shamelessly suits them. You have worked hard for the president and with David Mark and others in the senate to sustain our democracy. You have relentlessly worked hard to use the Senate to stabilize the President from the inception. Recall, as far back as in 2009 when you engaged me on the possibility of using the Kelsonian doctrine of necessity to pronounce Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, Acting President, having regards to the stout opposition coming from the trade union club of the state governors, you will recall that I asked you what you stood to lose/benefit if Jonathan was not so pronounced? Your argument was not only sound but also persuasive. You convinced me to believe that, it was in the interest of peace in Nigeria, stability of the PDP, the polity and indeed an opportunity for a Niger Delta to be President of Nigeria, since creation. You worked tirelessly with others to achieve this feat and Nigerians were happy for it. However, whilst you were at the Presidential villa to resolve the sabotage in the National Assembly, you were shocked that the PDP National Working Committee (NWC) behind you cancelled a delegate election its Appeal Panel confirmed to be free and fair, perhaps because the state overloads/emperor’s interest. I query why you were not a governor so that you can pose howbeit falsely to deliver every vote to the President even if you will fail in a free and fair election; it is agonizing that the PDP you whole heartedly worked for you could go to undercut you.
SENATOR, do you still believe that politics is not a concentric layer’s of conspiracies founded on back stabbing? Can the President even protect you? More than once, I had repeatedly and emphatically reported to you that, the PDP is set to trade-you-off, in spite of all your loyalty and sacrifices? Please shine your eyes and face the fact that some of our selfish states leaders want to replace you by all means. But why won’t you go and prostrate, and cry before Mr. President, to be favoured with a delegate list of your choice or be given opportunity to foist candidates on our sensibilities? Deep down your heart, I am sure you know that your offence for all the blackmail was your stout opposition to the use of some State Reps. Members to foist Tambuwal as speaker against PDP which he has abandoned. Be happy that, you have always stood on the side of PDP and history will vindicate you if no man does.
The question I have asked you many times is, if PDP had an overwhelming majority in the House in 2011 how come Tambuwal gathered such member of votes to win Hon. Adesola Akande, the parties choice? Has the PDP any answer to this puzzle? But what I still cannot understand is, on the face of all the conspiracies against you for standing on the side of history and on the side of the senate President to stabilize the polity he admitted at Ikom in the presence of Gov. Imoke on the day you lavishly empowered the people of your constituency, what is President Jonathan’s official reaction to your being used as the sacrificial lamb? Is the PDP intimidated by the organized empty posturing of the state Governors that, as field commanders they alone can deliver our President and the party? But can a commander alone win a war? Come to think of it, do you think the way and manner things are done today in the state PDP, Imoke is not on a mission to polarize the once compact family at a time a general election is by the corner? Is anybody damming the consequences because they are involved? In all of this, I suspect a foul play which may greatly disadvantage the PDP.
One should not force members to adopt particular persons as candidates. Whilst Imoke inherited from Donald Duke a united party he is certainly leaving a heavy burden on his successor. This is a hard fact; even an Emperor knows when not to strike. The earlier the PDP honestly address this conspiracy to push crowd pullers and grass-rooters like; Senator Prince Bassey Out, Hon. Essien Ayi, Hon. Ettah, Hon. Daniel Asuquo, Dr. Sandy Onor, Dr. Alex Egbona, the Senate Leader, Donald Duke, Senator Ita-Giwa, Ekpo Okon, Julius Okputu out of the party the better. Let no one person deceive Mr. President that he can go it alone to deliver him in Cross-River State. It is a collective task. A sense-able leader should know before now that the votes expected for the President in the February, 2015 election would never be the same again if force is applied.
My dear Senator Leader, whether Jonathan or Imoke trades-you-off or not, do not be a party to the orchestrated and threatened impeachment plot against the President. Please continue to protect him. The president is a man of providence, and a privilege to our zone and generation. Those who want you outer to replace you have not performed better either. I end this letter to you with a charge to my fellow Cross Riverians, not to allow anybody to control their franchise for his personal aggrandizement. To the President I say, your greatest undoing is your mistake to have allowed the PDP governors to operate as a trade union. Some of them will soon prove to him that it is only their physical that is with him but their spirits belong to APC. It is their determination to collectively force you to rely and inherit their loyalist at the centre to continue to bend you.
A WORD IS ENOUGH FOR THE WISE
By Chief Barr. Utum Eteng
(Kepkankeng 1 Kepkankeng)
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