Smoking Gun! Comrade Ononokpono says:

*Oro Nation did not endorse Governor Akpabio*Ita Toyo Sold Oro chance to the Senate in 2007*There is no PDP in AKS
Comrade Effiong Eso Ononokpono, is an elder statesman. His sojourn into politics spans over four decades. He was a close associate of the late elder statesman and icon of the Yoruba nation, Chief Obafemi Awolowo. He has continued in the politics of principles ever since his days in the Action Group. Comrade Ononokpono, speaks his mind at any time; and in this interview with our Political editor, Franklyn Isong, he did just that. He spoke against the background of the raging debate about who has been endorsed or not in Oro nation. He also took an angry swipe at the immediate past chairman of the PDP in Akwa Ibom state, Arc Otu Ita Toyo, and accused him of selling Oro shot at the senate in 2007. Recently, news making the rounds in the state is that Oro-Nation had endorsed Governor Akpabio for second term in office in 2011, can you confirm this as an Oro elder and leader?Before I give you a clear cut answer to that question, I like to clarify an issue. One, the PDP as a party I belong to has not yet called for nomination, so the issue of endorsement is most uncalled for. I have seen Governor Akpabio run helter shelter like a wounded lion, asking for support for an election coming up in the next 2 years. We are still in 2009 and the governorship election comes up in 2011. 11-9 is 2, 2 years; why all the running around asking for support for governorship election coming up in the next 2 years; this year only God knows. So, if Akpabio is so emotional about being a Governor, he has been a Governor. I don't think there is anything so spectacular about being a Governor, that Governor Akpabio should run around all over the State looking for endorsement. In any case, the so called endorsement, I mean in a democracy which we are purported to practice; it is one man one vote, but we are not really practicing it because we never can be sure who comes up for what office and what his success or failure will be at the end, because democracy as far as I am concerned in Nigeria is a misnomer. I have read in the papers people expressing their opinions; everybody has the right to express his opinion. And I also read about one young man, I think he is referred to as Uno (Etim Uno), a member of the State House of Assembly; I don't know him either, in fairness to you. Somebody I do not know within this area claiming to sanction a political aspirant, I mean it is unthinkable. There is no one or any other politician or political leader in this geo-political area (Oro Nation). I cannot as I am sanction anybody; the Ahta Oro or the Paramount Ruler cannot sanction anybody. As you know, freedom of expression, fundamental human rights completely are in favour of every human being. So as far as I am concerned, I have known of no endorsement of anybody at all, not even in Akwa Ibom State because the primaries have not yet been conducted; the political parties have not yet called for nomination, we don't even know the date of election. We (parties) have not fixed congresses to do the nomination. So, how come we are talking about the endorsement? Endorsement comes after an aspirant had been nominated, then he becomes a candidate, then the party of the candidate will endorse that candidate for any election.Who is the political leader of Oro Nation that can give political direction to your people?Leadership is such a complex matter that you cannot say so, so, so, so, is a leader. Governor Godswill Akpabio is a Governor of Akwa Ibom State; it does not automatically fall in that he is the leader of Akwa Ibom State. And in any case, in human nature you cannot have one person as a leader. If you have one person as a leader, that is dictatorship, but in human environment where we practice democracy, leadership is collective. Then, you can have one person as number one amongst equals, which is number one amongst the leaders. For example, here in Oro Nation, certain people can just be called upon who are in the leadership class which of course; with all humility I can say I am one. If I am not there, it is not complete. There are also a number of people who in fact are leaders but not necessarily political leaders of the community. But no one person can give a direction, because democracy is what we practice, anybody has the right to make any office; anybody has the right to make any statement as far as that statement is not libellous, in which case, the victim of that statement could sue. Everybody has the right. For example, I can say today, I will support Akpabio when the time comes, that does not means I have endorsed Akpabio. I made a statement it is not endorsement I can today say I will not support Akpabio, endorse Akpabio.As far as I am concerned, nobody has been endorsed by Oro-people, Ibibio people, Ananng people, because the time for it has not yet come.But it was reported that during a courtesy visit to the governor in 2008 and during the grand reception of the governor in December 2008 by your people, the Oro Nation, that he was endorsed respectively by the entire Oro Nation for the 2011 governorship election in the state contrary to what you are telling us now?I can say it for certain that, Oro Nation did not endorse Governor Akpabio, and no forum in Oro Nation has endorsed Akpabio; and no individual in Oro has the power or the right to endorse Akpabio. It is only when Oro people sit down and talk, discuss, then we could collectively say this is the person we would want to support; the person can only be endorsed by his own political party. The leadership as you look at it is not that of one party. In a free and democratic society, the political opinion leaders can gather together and talk. I can tell you for certain, I am not speaking for the Ahta of Oro, but I can tell you for certain that the Ahta himself cannot say what, he cannot. He cannot say that, because he does not have such mandate or such authority. And I know him, he is more or less a father to me, apart from coming now to be the Ahta Oro, he has been my mentor when I was a worker. He is a fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Medical Laboratory Science and of Britain too, and I happened to serve with him in the Oron Local Government executive; he was the supervisory councillor for health while I was for agriculture and also had that of revenue within my portfolio as the chairman of Internal Revenue Generation Committee. So, he is personally very close to me. In fact, if I go to him any time, I call him master, because he is actually my master. So I know what he is capable of doing and what he cannot do. So when it comes to that, I can claim to speak and nobody who comes to my level in Oro Nation can speak; and I think, I am one of those very few. I can say categorically that nobody in Oro Nation, no organization, no group has adopted Governor Godswill Akpabio as a candidate for the 2011 election. But, let me add this, there is so much money in this state, which Governor Akpabio is in total control; Governor Akpabio has the right and he does it, give money to certain people to make certain statements which are completely out of the minds of the people and the context of democratic convention. You cannot go and speak for a people without a mandate. But, I can say as certain, Akpabio has not been endorsed or adopted by Oro people, because the chips are not yet down.Is there any plan to adopt a particular aspirant for the 2011 governorship election by your people, the Oro Nation?Never! No such plan at all. You see, politics is not a static thing; politics is dynamic and politics is a game of ideas; it is a game of interest, where your interest lies that is where you go. But when I mean interest, I don't mean personal interest but your communal interest; your group interest; your state or national interest, where it lies that is where you go. So if the election is to come in 2 years time and I sit down today or any group sits down today and say, we have adopted so, so, so, supposing the man dies in 2 weeks time, then having said that you might have made a fool of yourself, because you never can know what God has for the next 2 minutes. It may be as you are leaving here, you hear somebody saying that, that Ononokpono you just visited is dead? But in my own case, I will not die because God has told me that I will not die. Nothing has been said by anybody, so whoever said such a thing is a charlatan; he has no mandate at all. When we meet, in every community there is a leadership caucus, when we, mind you, I say 'we' and not I, the opinion leaders in Oro Nation meet. I am one of them, if any person tells you that I'm not one of them, the person must be a case study. When we meet, we shall say what we know is the best for Oro people. I know what is best for Oro people; I have represented Oro people and I have done my little bit as an individual and for the community. So I'm one of the opinion leaders.What if tomorrow somebody comes up from Oro Nation to counter what you are saying today?The person must be a fool, because he does not have the mandate that I have. When I speak, I speak for the generality of Oro people and there are other people also who can speak in that wise, but we are very few. Of course, leadership is not an all going affair. It is not for everybody, certain people are endowed to be within the leadership caucus but no one person can stand up to say “I am the leader”, but I can say, I am “a” leader, I hope you understand my grammar, not I am “the” leader. In this case, I am one of those you can say is amongst the leadership caucus of Oro nation. You see people who are paid sycophants; people who have no opinion of their own; people who cannot say what they feel; what they see and what they know, and I can say such people know next to nothing. And there are people who can speak the way I am speaking within Oro nation that can tell you (governor) Akpabio or anybody for that matter has not been adopted.But they say that you have retired from active politics, and so your views may not be respected?Ok! You could say I'm a statesman at my age and at the level I have attained in politics. I have done international politics. So, whoever says my opinion is not respected, you wait, when the time comes, you will come back and interview me.Are you a PDP member?I'm a PDP member, I have my card; I can bring my card and show it to you if you want.Who is your state chairman?As at now, we do not have an authentic state chairman.Is there any parallel Exco in Akwa Ibom chapter of PDP?There is no parallel Exco where there is an Exco in existence, but the man said to be the head of the Exco, who is supposed to be the chairman does not have the mandate.You just said there is an Exco in place, but the chairman does not have the mandate. How did the exco emerge?There is an Exco in place, but the chairman is not an authentic chairman. I can explain it. There was this general directive from the National Secretariat of PDP, which was really wrong; I say it with experience and with my own philosophy of being a social democrat. (Late) Pa (Obafemi) Awolowo in his time would not have said go and bring consensus candidate, rather he will say go and bring acceptable candidate. Acceptable candidate will be acceptable by overwhelming majority of the people. Whether by college system or by consensus candidate, the stakeholders of that area will meet and say this is the one we want, and they will ask for other peoples' opinion. If majority of the stakeholders say this is the one we want then he has been accepted by consensus. The chairman's case, he is said to come from Uyo Senatorial District, then ask me who are the leaders; the stakeholders of Uyo Senatorial District, a former Governor of the state, Arc Obong Attah, is from Uyo Senatorial District, you will pick him as a stakeholder. You have a certain minister at the time, Senator J. J. Akpanudoedehe; then you have the member of the national working committee, Lady Ime Udom, as a senior stakeholder; then you have an ex-minister, Obongawan Rita Akpan, who also is a woman leader of Uyo Senatorial District, and others. All these I'm counting are the foremost stakeholders in Uyo Senatorial District; they had no idea of how Uwem Ita Etuk emerged as the chairman of PDP. You can then conclude that he was hand-picked across the board by the state Governor. Then the stakeholders from that area say no, we cannot agree, you cannot pick our own person for us. So these people I have mentioned, Arc Victor Attah, Senator J. J. Akpanudoedehe, Lady Ime Udom, Mrs. Rita Akpan, all of them are the outstanding stakeholders, they all said, we do not accept Uwem Ita Etuk, that's all.What is the position of things in the state party since Ike Nwanchukwu's panel visited. Are there still disagreements?I can tell you for now that the party, PDP, is not in existence in Akwa Ibom State.But you said there is an Exco?Yes. I said an Exco put in place, but there is no authentic head, so that means the party is not actually in existence as far as I'm concerned; the party is not in existence and I can tell you what happened that day; the people who were sent from Lagos were supposed to come and interview those of us who had aired opinion, some put in writing and the panel were supposed to interview those people, get them to confirm; but nobody was allowed to. They just brushed up everything. At the appropriate time, you will hear what had become of that. The matter of PDP in Akwa Ibom is in the people's court and by conventional law; you don't speak of a matter that is pending in the court. At the appropriate time, when the people want to pass judgment we will hear.Reports have it that Obong Victor Attah, the leader of one of the factions in the state PDP, plans to move his faction to the proposed mega party that is being championed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, General Buhari and Atahiru Bafarawa and others. What is your reaction?It is not true. I can tell you that the Obong Attah that I know; not that we are the best of friends, but he has tremendous respect for me, cannot do that. When Obong Attah left office, we did not leave as friends because there was certain advice I gave to him which he did not take and it backfired, so we parted in anger. It is only this issue that has brought us to talk together. I'm not going there because I'm Attah's man. I'm above being anybody's man.What is your assessment of the free education policy of the Akwa Ibom state government, being that Late Chief Obafemi Awolowo was the first to introduce it in the western region and you are an Awoist?The free education in Akwa Ibom has not yet started. The announcement has been made, it has not yet started. Why it has not yet started is this, what statistics do you have of teachers for each of the subjects, especially the sciences? What statistics do you have for the students population; first year, second year, third year and so on and so forth? There are no figures. It was just a fire-brigade announcement by the Governor. He just woke up, no discussion, nothing, no planning, we have free education because money just poured in, in quantum. Money is not human's major problem; you can pack money into this house, if I do not plan for that money, the money will start flying, then next week you come back no money in this house. There is much money in Akwa Ibom State, which I think people are getting crazy about it; this has fuelled lots and lots of things. Let me say it, I personally fought for an appointment with the Governor to discuss about the security of this state. Incidentally, my studies have taken me to security studies. I did labour studies and I did strategic studies in Israel and I have a lot of experience and when Pa Awo (Late chief Obafemi Awolowo) discovered this, I became his closet, I'm not boasting; I was the only person who can break his rules and get away with it. Up till today, I still communicate with Mama (Chief Mrs. Obafemi Awolowo) more than every other person, because I know what it takes. It is not written in books, you have to study situation, if you read Awolowo's book on his 8 years of administration, there is a portion of it which talks about how they started the free education in the west. You need to look at what other people did, to be able to do what you have to do, that is what we call research. You do not just wake-up over night and announce something; you must strategize and start working. Free education, as far as I am concerned, is not in Akwa Ibom State.What if at the national level Uwem Ita Etuk is adopted as the state chairman of your party, the PDP, will the Obong Attah's group which you belong leave the party to another political party?(Cut in) No, no, no, we cannot leave the party.Then how would you feel working with him as the chairman of your party?(Cut in) He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day. We will fight it until justice is done. We are not leaving the party; we will fight until justice is done.Won't your continuous fighting amount to disloyalty to your party's constitution, since the national working committee would have resolved the chairmanship crisis?(Cut in) Oh! No, no, no, disloyalty is when you betray the party, but if you fight on principle within the party, that is called intra-party struggle. It is just like communist study, you know they have what is called class struggle; if I am higher, I have more money, and I have more wealth more than yourself, there will be jealousy between your group which might be a poorer group and my group which is the richer group; and then we call that class struggle. There will be internal struggle. Intra-party struggle, we will fight the elements within the party. I mean, the head of the party is the President; we will fight to let the President see our own right. We believe that President Umaru Musa Yar'Adua is a man of conscience, if he were not; one like Chief Bode George would not have gone to prison today. Some other Presidents would have intervened and called the judge and instruct him not to jail Bode George, because it will bring disgrace to the party and his government. So, I believe President Yar'Adua will do justice; therefore, we will fight until we have justice in the state PDP.Don't you think that if the in-fighting in the state PDP persist that the national working committee may think of imposing a caretaker committee on you; the state PDP members?Oh! Yes, I think, if the National Elders Reconciliation Committee (Senator Ike Nwanchukwu's panel) can do that, they have done a good job, so far we have not seen the report.Speculations in the state have it that the Ike Nwachukwu panel has submitted its report to the National Working Committee, in which they said that the crisis in the state PDP has been resolved by them. What is your take….?(Cut-in) That is false, even as a pressman and from the interviews you conducted in the state, you know that the crisis in the party has not been resolved. I think, it was the Insight Newspaper that reported that Obong Attah accepted the apology for the insult in expelling him from the party, but he said as far as he is concerned Uwem Ita Etuk is not accepted as the chairman of the party, having been said to be nominated by the stakeholders of Uyo Senatorial District of which he (Attah) was not there; Senator Akpanudoedehe who was present there (in the reconciliation meeting) was not there; Lady Ime Udom who was present there, was not there; then Rita Akpan who was of course absent by excuse. So he (Attah) said this and your paper, Insight, reported it very clearly, but the headline in Akwa Ibom Newspaper said it (the crisis) has been resolved and even while we were there (in the meeting) they were reporting in the state radio that the matter has been resolved that Uwem Ita Etuk has been endorsed; that was false and of course, you have now realized that it is not true.Where is your son Otu Ita Toyo in this crisis, he has remained silent in this matter….?(Cut-in) Because he disagreed himself.How?He was taking bribe here and there. He took bribe; he took bribe from aspirants.Do you have proofs?I confronted him, he took bribe even from aspirant for local government chairmanship election; he took bribe …I said Ita Toyo took bribe from people; that's why he is not bold enough.Where is he now?I don't know. This is my house; I don't know where he leaves. Well, I used to have his phone numbers, it is still in my system and I don't remember calling him since he messed up; he sold out cheap; he sold out the right of Oro-people.How do you mean, comrade?The senatorial seat was for Oro. He sold it out; it was for Oro, quote me; he sold it out. You see, Oro started it in the present dispensation, call it civilian rule since it came into existent in 1979, Oro did one full term in the person of Senator Victor Akan (late), who then went only three months right! Then after that, when we resumed (Senator) Etang Umoeyoh, did almost 2 years, I mean, the termination was not the making of anybody; we counted that. (Senator) Victor Akan did a year, he should have actually completed the 2 term, but he didn't, anyhow there is nothing stipulating that, it should be two term. So, (Senator) Udoma completed two full terms after Udoma, it should have come back to Oro where it started. The leaders of Onna (LGA) said it was the right of Oro people; Eket (LGA) said it was the right of Oro people, but an Oro person was the chairman of the party; he sold it out for cash, say Effiong Ononokpono said so.2011 is just by the corner; will the senatorial seat be the turn of Oro Nation?I don't know, I cannot answer that now. You see, you cannot go and call somebody in for such a thing, somebody must aspire. culled from weeklyinsightng.com