Utibe Ukim is the Special Adviser to the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nsima Ekere on media. In this interview, he speaks about the politics of Akwa Ibom State and the edge the APC has over PDP in the coming election.
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Excerpts:
How are you looking at the politics of Akwa Ibom state?
Politics of Akwa Ibom state is very interesting because we have had governments through the years since the return of democracy in 1999, and the previous government set standards that whoever steps into the office is judged. What you get now is that the people of Akwa Ibom have gotten into a firing mood because the governor on seat right now is not delivering the expectations of the people.
Not delivering the expectations of the people in what ways?
There are two things; delivering and delivering the expectations of the people. You don’t need to walk too far to notice that hunger walks on the four legs in Akwa Ibom. We are the number one oil producing state in the country and that means we account for a sizable chunk of the revenue of this country, yet there is so much poverty in this state. The figures from the national bureau of statistics shows that in Akwa Ibom, 1.8 million out of 3.3 million people within the working age bracket are out of work.
Akwa Ibom is known to be a PDP state. As an opposition party, are you confident that APC will take over power from PDP in the state?
I don’t know how you will describe a state as a PDP or APC state because through the years, we have had two governors that completed their terms; Obong Victor Attah and Godswill Akpabio.
Obong Victor Attah is retired and an elder statesman, he is not in active politics. But even before he retired, he had moved from the PDP. Then Senator Godswill Akpabio who was also a former governor who served for eight years has also moved from the PDP to the APC. If you look at the two leaders that had excited the state with what they had done, they have moved away from the environment that over the last three and half years is responsible for the poverty, hunger and the deprivation in
the state. And it is very easy to say that they have moved to a party that is on the winning side. If you use history as a basis, I may not be able to argue with you that the PDP has always won but if you are looking at the realities on ground, I will tell you that this state is completely APC.
What do you think will be the vote pattern of Akwa Ibom people?
In Akwa Ibom, the electorates are in a firing mood. They are going to fire non-performers. We are used to state of greatness; we are used to people who perform. If you have somebody in place who is not performing, they are going to say, please step away let somebody who can perform come in. We have a candidate who has done a lot as NDD boss in Akwa Ibom state. He is not the first person in Akwa Ibom who has occupied that seat. But the first thing he did when he got there and discovered that on the NDDC Convention, the state with the highest production quota of oil should attract the highest number in terms of value of projects. Akwa Ibom was about number three and he has reversed that. That is why you see a lot of things come into Akwa Ibom. The new roads in Akwa Ibom state are all NDDC roads, make no mistake about that.
So you are saying that Akwa Ibom people will be in safer hands in APC rather than PDP?
I have known Nsima Ekere for 37 years, I am very close to him, from the first day we stepped into school till today. He has been a man who is consistent, a nonviolent person. He will be an inclusive governor. I know he will be able to use the right policies and strategies to bring people to the table. APC is a party that believes in unity. Before the primaries, there were different factions of the party but now we have one strong indivisible APC. That is because there is somebody who is trying to work and bring together stakeholders’ interests in the party.