Ata Ikiddeh, a close ally of Nigeria’s Senate President Godswill Akpabio, has attacked aides of Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State, accusing them of betraying the governor by going to the airport to welcome the governor’s predecessor, Udom Emmanuel.
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On Thursday, some politicians, including aides of Mr Eno, trooped to the airport to welcome Mr Emmanuel, who was in Akwa Ibom for his cousin’s burial – his first visit to the state after his successor, Mr Eno, whom he helped to become governor, left the PDP for the APC. Some of the aides also served the former while in office.
Describing the reception as a “honey trap” laid by Mr Emmanuel, Mr Ikiddeh, a former aide to Mr Akpabio, said that Mr Eno’s aides who “fell for it” have demonstrated their lack of loyalty to the governor and cannot be trusted.
According to Mr Ikiddeh, while Mr Emmanuel would have banished those aides, Mr Eno was silent about it. Mr Ikiddeh warned that the aides should not take advantage of the “governor’s meekness”.
“Mr Emmanuel may posture as the opposition leader, but let no one mistake Mr Eno’s silence for weakness. Meekness is not weakness. Courtesy is not surrender.
“Those aides of Governor Eno, who ran into Mr Emmanuel’s honey trap at the airport, have already marked themselves they cannot be trusted. Under Mr Emmanuel, they would have been banished into political exile,” Mr Ikiddeh wrote on Facebook, suggesting that the aides should be sanctioned, warning that Mr Eno’s patience should not be mistaken for naivety.
While arriving at his Awa Iman country home in Onna Local Government Area of the state, Mr Emmanuel was treated to a fanfare reception by supporters, who held banners, waved the PDP flags, and chanted songs in solidarity with the former governor, prompting Mr Ikiddeh to dismiss the visit as “sheer political theatre disguised as a family event”.
“Every drumbeat, every banner, every hired hand last week bore his (Mr Emmanuel’s) signature. And everyone knows nothing in politics is free. So, who funded it? Who paid for the carnival? The fingers all point one way—Mr Emmanuel. Am I blaming him – No! They say politics is a game,” Mr Ikiddeh wrote.
Mr Ikiddeh is not the first ally of Mr Akpabio to demand sanctions against Governor Eno’s aides who received Mr Emmanuel at the airport; earlier, Anietie Ekong, a media aide to Mr Akpabio, made a similar call.
“What I found most disturbing and concerning are the appointees of Governor Eno who trooped out to welcome their former boss and rubbed it in our faces where their allegiance and loyalty stand. They stumbled over themselves to take selfies with the former governor and, without qualms, splashed (the photographs) in our faces on social media; their bodies may be with Governor Eno, but their hearts are with Mr Udom Emmanuel,” Mr Ekong wrote on Facebook about Mr Emmanuel’s visit.
“This is me calling out the appointees of Governor Umo Eno to state today, whom they shall serve: their present boss or the former boss,” Mr Ekong added.
Governor Eno confirmed to an online newspaper, Policy and Politics, that he had read the piece by Mr Akpabio’s aide, but said he would not fight his predecessor.
“For me, those to watch out for are not those who pay respect to our leaders in the open. It is those who sneak surreptitiously to tell lies and plant evil seeds and yet come to smile with you,” the newspaper quoted Mr Eno as saying.
The Policy and Politics report is authored by Etim Etim, the paper’s publisher and editor-in-chief. Mr Etim, a former editorial board member at the Guardian newspaper, is a chieftain of the APC in Akwa Ibom.
Before leaving the PDP for APC, Mr Eno repeatedly told the people he was not doing party politics in the state, stressing that he could accept other appointees refusing to join him, but that his commissioners, whom he described as his “first eleven”, must join him in the APC or resign their appointments.
And after defection, he doubled down – integrating “Akwa Ibom United,” a phrase he used to refer to governance across party lines, into the APC slogan in the state, apparently to convince people that his policies are not party-based.
In a leaked video, which led to the eviction of Channels TV crew from Government House Press Corps, Mr Eno had also promised that he would not dissolve the state executive council, but he might rejig.
“Don’t let people poison your mind. You can only leave this council if you’re not performing. Until I finish my first term, I am not going to dissolve the (state executive) council again. But as it goes, I might rejig, drop two, add two,” he told the commissioners, stressing, “but it is not going to be based on partisan politics.”
On the future of the PDP, the party, whose platform he became governor, Mr Eno vowed to retain control of the party structure in the state so that “thieves don’t hijack and use it to fight against him.”
These policies appear to have unsettled Akpabio’s camp, who are apparently considering the continuous alliance between Mr Eno’s aides with Mr Emmanuel as a demonstration of disloyalty to Mr Eno, and an act of serving two masters.
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