This is a hard one for me. This has been a tortuous trajectory. A political journey and in a polity, with weather as inclement as Nigeria, is not for the fainthearted. A political journey is full of horrendous valleys, sharp bends, dark twists, penduluming emotions and above all, an incredible demand for courage and patience and tact.
When you see a Nigerian politician, please accord them some respect. It is not easy. I don’t agree that politics should be a full-time job but being a politician is -without a doubt. Politicians deserve a happy hour break, twenty four seven.
Yes, because they daily face nonumental hazards. Most people cannot stand the untold blackmail, the brute intimidation, or the evil machinations that politicians (especially in Nigeria) permanently laugh off. It is almost like the Nigerian politician is a stoic who should be a university self-restraint course. Politics in Nigeria is a dirty game because our politicians get so abused by the process but are expected never to betray such emotions.
My personal journey has been this and more. To be sure, I set out in the wee 90’s. I was right there actively involved in Southern Uruan Ward V politics, as a fresh undergraduate at the great University of Uyo, when Akpan Isemin of National Republican Convention (NRC) beat Ekong Etuk of my Social Democratic Party (SDP) to become Akwa Ibom state’s first civilian chief executive. That shock defeat offered me a rude awakening, a baptism of ice.
Being young and naive, politically speaking, I couldn’t imagine at the time how someone so loved would lose an election. Ekong Etuk, a very beautiful man who shared an eccentric connection with the people, losing to Akpan Isemin taught me a fundamental political lesson, namely that there are no guarantees. Popularity is not votes. Politics -or more specifically, election- doesn’t reward people for being popular: it rewards them for nothing!
That nothing could be something or nothing, really. That is, political or election favour could discard you for something or nothing, and favour you for nothing or something. You could be loved for always sitting out in the bar with the boys or hated for insisting on saner stuff. Politics is real tricky terrain.
In politics Nigeriana, a given plus could transmogrify into a minus just like that. What ought to attract sympathy could be greeted by mockery, with everyone looking away in knowing connivance. In-laws could turn away from a candidate who recently lost his spouse. His offence?: they suspect he’s planning to take a wife from somewhere else!
And, people will buy into the frivolous falsehood and spread it like their lives depended on it. It’s amazing how politicians manage to stay sane after hearing all the things they hear. I fear those who don’t fear politicians. Politicians swim with the sharks every day of their lives and survive to swim another day.
As I was saying: when politics and election, which had taken a break in Nigeria on 18th November 1993, returned in 1998 for 1999, I was still on the ground; ever-conscious. I remember every detail of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Peoples Party (APP) governorship primaries and the eventual emergence of Victor Attah as second civilian Governor of Akwa Ibom state. In 2001, after I got back from national youth service, Obong (Barr.) Nyong Etim Udo, appointed me Supervisor of Education, Youth, Sport and Culture with 11 months to the end of his time as chairman of Uruan Local Government. Those were the 11 months of my life!
I experienced raw politics, firsthand. I measured leadership at that grassroots level, up close. I saw clearly how our people, in the name of poverty, contribute to the way our society is and may remain, for a long time. Notwithstanding, those 11 defining months did not deter me.
I would throw my first electoral hat into the ring in 2003 looking to be Chairman of Uruan Local Government. In 2007, I tried House of Assembly, and again in 2011. All three efforts proved abortive. In 2009 and 2012, the then governor of the state offered me two huge political appointments (one in Uyo and the other in Abuja, the nation’s capital).
Unfortunately, I couldn’t accept any of those offers. In the build-up to 2015, I rooted for Mr Umana Okon Umana for governor. Again, that drew blank. Yet, I soldiered on.
Persistence and optimism are twin vital virtues you need in this game of numbers and power. On the third day of June 2018, around 6pm, I got a call from Chairman of Uyo Capital City Development Authority, Prince Enobong Uwah, who asked that I hold on to speak with Secretary to State Government, Dr Emmanuel Ekuwem, who simply gave me a word from Gov. Udom Emmanuel. Two days passed, I was appointed Member of Governing Board of Akwa Ibom State Primary Healthcare Board which was eventually inaugurated on the fifth day of September of that year. As the Dr Martin Akpan-led board readied for our first anniversary in office, Gov. Emmanuel in June 2019 (a week after having been sworn in for second term) named me Special Assistant on Electronic Media.
September last year, he renewed the four-year mandate of the board. On the dual beats, these five years, I have come within touching distance of state power and can tell you for free that there’s a difference between touching distance and actual touch. I have been within touching distance of political power but I have not touched it. I am consoled though, that as Chinua Achebe postulated, eating bearded meat is guaranteed once one doesn’t die young.
Then, I talked with Pastor Umo Eno at the time serving as Honourable Commissioner, Lands and Water Resources in my home state of Akwa Ibom. Then, we met a couple of times. Then, politics happened and he became the aspirant to beat. Then, the build-up 2023 spirit came upon me.
I dived straight into the muddy river. Later, when God brought the idea of unionising PDP Ward Leaders in the state, the effervescence simply quadrupled. But, so too my political troubles which had started mounting from that day in 2018 I became Ward Leader of Uruan South V. Suddenly, I became the preferred easy butt of all sorts of insults.
That’s another thing, by the way. Talk and insults are in such massive supply in politics around here. Even big people (little big people, really) revel in them. Shall I eventually be like that, too?
The thought of this and allied political matters scares me to no end. In this life, shall I wake up one day and start picking on people for nothing? Can I ever pretend, hate or lie as if everyone else is a fool? Shall I one day become so selfish to the extent that those who have always known me no longer recognise me?
… cont’d next Monday