My vote for Jonathan made Akpabio hate me – Senator Aloysius Etok

This explosive interview published by DailyIndependent newspaper is a must read. It is certainly to spark off numerous political fireworks in Akwa Ibom State ahead of the 2015 general elections.

Read the full interview after the cut…

 

Senator Aloysius Etok

 

 

 

Senate Committee Chairman on Establishments, Aloysius Akpan Etok, who is representing Akwa Ibom North-West, in this interview with Assistant Politics Editor, CELESTINE OKAFOR, talks about defections, especially in the Senate by both PDP and APC members to either side, his problems with his governor, Godswill Akpabio, Akwa Ibom State politics among other issues

Looking at the whole drama that attended the defection recently by some Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) senators to the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC), what should we expect as the 2015 general election approaches?

Certainly, l will like to say that we in the Senate have a way of looking at things quite differently. Agreed that there have been attempts to read the defection letter, but it is still the duty of the presiding officer of the Senate to determine whether or not such letter should be read. I want to say here that the presiding officer, who is the Senate president, has handled the situation well. He has advised senators involved to engage in wider consultations before the action is taken. He has equally assured them of protection. More importantly, he was restrained by the Madakin report which is currently being looked into by senators themselves. The Senate president is also trying not to offend the section of our rules which says that when a matter is before the court, the Senate would not discuss or take any action on that matter. That is protective enough, so that we don’t offend the spirit of the law and the principles of law guiding the Senate. Therefore, l would like to say that while the right to belong to any group is the individual right of every senator, but it is important to exercise such right with adequate consultation of the constituents. I therefore want to join the Senate president in appealing to the affected senators to tarry a while and look at the reason for the delay in reading their letter, so that everything will be well sorted out later in a win-win situation. They must belong to where they want to belong, but the law should be respected by the lawmakers.

As a PDP senator, are you worried that the defection is diminishing the strength of your party?

Well, as a member of the PDP, I am not worried about the defections. I rather will be worried in a situation of apathy. I said in one of my media interviews that there is nothing too difficult for the PDP as a party to handle because it is a family. The new national chairman of the PDP (Adamu Mu’azu) has so far taken quite some commendable steps to reconcile and reposition the party. He has been addressing all the key areas of differences and has even visited every one of the aggrieved governors and assured them that they will soon see difference in his style of administration. Politics is all about your interest and the interest of your constituency. If somebody wants to trample on those interests, you can go to any length to protect that interest. So, l am sure that the new PDP chairman will be able to take care of all the outstanding issues, so that the party can move forward.

Some of the lawmakers have been touting the issue of automatic tickets to enable them return easily to their positions in 2015. How do you see that, as a democrat and lawmaker?

It is not only touting the idea, we are asking for what is right. There is always this issue of first option or what, in American politics where we copied our presidential democracy, is known as the ‘Right of First Refusal’ by any incumbent President or senator or any congressman. It is done in other advanced democracies of the world, just as it has even been done in Nigeria in the past. We can do it again this time. This means that when you are a legislator and you want to contest another election which involves a primary, the option of saying yes or no to such offer should first come from that particular lawmaker. It is only that we are shying away from doing the right thing. That arrangement should even be formally incorporated in our Electoral Act. But l think it should be limited to individual lawmakers who have been found guilty of non-performance. If the party is satisfied that you did your job very well in a particular tenure as a lawmaker, why should another person be allowed by the party to take over from you when you have not been given the option to decline or accept? The right of first refusal should be given to the sitting senator or any lawmaker. That is why we are not moving as fast as we should in the issue of the quality of lawmaking. It is not good for the nation’s democracy and quality of laws made for the good governance of the country, when we keep having high rate of turn-over of lawmakers in every election. The experienced ones are thrown away while new ones are brought in to start learning the ropes afresh. After every election, we always have less than 25 per cent of experienced lawmakers returning to their positions. It is not fair when you consider the cost of training one legislator. And no matter who you are or how brilliant you are, it will not take you less than one year to learn the legislative ropes. It takes some about two years to learn. Having done that, you have less than two years of your remaining tenure to sharpen your skills in the art of lawmaking before you go for a fresh election. Therefore, it is to the great disadvantage of the nation and the constituency, that we are not having mature and experienced legislators, who have the skill to impact on good governance, after every election. So l am definitely in support of automatic tickets, not only for the PDP, but for all the political parties, so that we can lay a proper foundation for the workings of the nation’s legislature which is the engine room of our democracy. In fact, the rate of return of experienced lawmakers should not be less than 80 per cent after every election, so that we can always have mature lawmakers to sustain the quality of lawmaking in the country.

Now, if you are given an automatic ticket in 2015 as an incumbent senator, would you see that as an insurance against your governor, Godswill Akpabio, from successfully challenging you, even on a different political platform?

That is a good but tricky question. But that is because some of you in the media are beginning to see state governors as alpha and omega. What makes you think Governor Akpabio has the right to challenge me?

And what makes you think you have the right not to be challenged by the governor, because he has accused you of non-performance and…?

(Cuts in sharply) Look, Governor Akpabio does not own this seat (Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District seat). It does not belong to him. The seat belongs to the people. They are the ones who will select between the two of us who will represent them from 2015. Power belongs to God. And when you speak to me, you speak so conclusively as if Godswill (Akpabio) will just come and remove me from the seat and throw away.

But the governor is carrying on as if he can do that, and you’ve not proved to him that he does not have any such powers.

You see, that is the problem. The problem of this nation is that everybody has turned the state governors to demigods. They are not! They are still accountable to the people, just as l am to the people as a representative senator of the people. If there is a proper democratic process carried out, both Governor Akpabio and I will all be given a level-playing  ground, to go to the senatorial primaries and test our strength before the people. And mind you, there is a great difference between the work in the executive arm of government where Akpabio is coming from and work in the legislature where l am also coming from. So the people of Akwa Ibom North-West will decide whether they will go for a mature and tested legislature like me, or they want an opulent man who wants to carry himself into the Senate. It is a wrong signal. You people are setting the wrong precedent to the public. I am not talking about any protection with an automatic ticket, l am talking about a general and acceptable practice in every presidential and Westminster democracy that we are all familiar with. In the American Senate, John McCain challenged President Barack Obama in the elections, and after he lost to Obama, he went back to his job in the Senate. So McCain’s senatorial district knows that he has something to offer in the Senate. Therefore, nobody should make it look like the automatic ticket was meant to protect the weak from the strong.

There are two issues here. One is that Akpabio has been castigating you for non-performance which you said is not true. The second is that since you have said you are more popular among the people than Akpabio, who, between the two of you, do you think is likely to humiliate the other at the polls in February 14, 2015?

The people prefer me to Akpabio because l have touched their lives in many ways. I am more popular among our people in the North-West than the governor. The people still want me to represent them in 2015. On the basis of all these and more, l will defeat Akpabio in any free and fair election in our constituency. He is not my match, though he has too much money in his pocket. Therefore, it is only the people that can decide between the two of us.

Now, what are those things you have done which your constituents have acknowledged but which Akpabio is yet to acknowledge or is trying to impugn?

You are asking very good questions. If Governor Godswill Akpabio said l have not lived up to the expectation of the people, did you ask him what the expectations of the people are. Was he talking about his own personal expectations or that of the people? To answer your question, l am the only senator in Akwa Ibom today that has set new record of public expectation. As at today, l am the only senator in Akwa Ibom state who has given scholarship to about 500 people. It is on record, and l have not seen any senator before me in the history of our area who has broken that record. I am talking about my senatorial district. From the first senator, Umoh, to Ikpe who is from the same local government as Akpabio. Senator Ikpe is from the village behind Akpabio’s village. As at today, it is on record that l have distributed about 54 motor vehicles to the people. There is no senator from my area who has ever given one car to anybody. Go and investigate as a journalist because most of those past senators are still alive today.

 

For what purpose are the vehicles?

Whether it is private or commercial, l have given to people. I have also given two buses to ethnic and cultural organisations in Akpabio’s town. Apart from the first bus that was given to Etinan by Dr. Ime Umana when the organisation started, no other government nominee or elected public official has ever given anything to that organisation. I gave them a bus before the governor did. I gave a bus to Anang Youth Development in Lagos when they did their programme. No senator has ever done what l have done, including reaching the people and taking empowerment projects to them. Generally and across the board, l have taken Millennium Development Goal (MDG) health projects including roads, primary schools, electricity transformers to the areas. Right now, the transformer l donated to Abak has been fully installed to working capacity. I did all that through the budget. But the scholarships were personal. I have, right now, a programme which will run all through my tenure in the Senate, especially in the area of education and supplementing Law training in the universities. I have been doing all these since l came into the Senate. Last December, l gave the last batch of 74 Law scholarships. This year, l am equally going to give. Nobody has empowered their people more than me. So, what expectation are people talking about?  I have far gone beyond Akpabio’s expectations. The governor is just intimidated by my records, my achievements in the Senate. And l dare Akpabio to challenge me or contradict me. So whenever you see the governor and he tells you again that he is more popular than me, please ask him: in which area? Power belongs to God and he gives to whoever he wants to give it to. This time around and since power belongs to God, we will leave all that to him to decide who He wants to give the power to.

How many local governments under your senatorial district do you actually have control over?

I am a minority in my constituency. I have only two local governments from my tribe out of a total of 10 in our senatorial district. The other eight local governments belong to Akpabio’s tribe. But whenever election is coming, there are always wonders. No group of people or local government will say l have disappointed them in my parliamentary representation and in my provision of welfare to the public when the need arises. I have given diverse support to the people. Let Akpabio say what has made him to say he is more popular than me. Those who are truly popular will be known after the 2015 general elections.

There is an emerging trend now, where state governors who are serving out their second term are angling in a mad rush to go to the Senate. There are about 13 or 14 of those governors on queue, including your governor, for 2015. What is the implication of such invasion of the Senate?

Well, the Nigerian people should be indeed very worried about this development. Most of these governors are not truly coming to add value or to enhance the quality of legislation in the National Assembly. Most of them are coming with very sinister motives. Already, some of them are coming to be Senate president. They have already drawn up a programme. They have drawn their list. They are coming to cover themselves up. Some of them are already anticipating that the evils they committed during their tenure will haunt them, and they are looking for a cover; an umbrella that will shelter them. There are few of them who are truly honest, but the trouble is that when people like that come, they will carry what they were doing in the Nigerian Governors’ Forum (NGF) to the Senate. Right now, they have taken over power from the party and the presidency, and they have become the managers of the nation. If anything is not done by the President according to their caprices, they will attack the President and compel him to do their biddings. The same thing they do to the party. They insist that the party must make them a clearing house. So they are a danger to our democracy. When those governors come to the Senate, they will stop at nothing to carry forward that kind of programme and agenda and they endanger democracy. They certainly will scuttle the peace of the Senate and disrupt that mature character of the Senate. Some of the governors who are coming will not have legislative attitude. The legislature is a different place. Anybody can be a governor because he will have advisers and people like commissioners and specialists who will tell you what to do. But it is not everybody that can be a legislator because it is a job you must do on your own. The country has not provided enough for experts who will help in the legislative work. You are left with the alternative of putting your feet down on the job. But it is not like that in governorship.

What is the cause of your brawl with Akpabio?

My problem with him started when l moved in support of President Goodluck Jonathan succeeding the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua. Akpabio, then, actually did not want Jonathan, who was Vice President then, to be sworn in as President. Akpabio was with the then PDP national chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, in the business of stopping Jonathan. So, when l voted in favour of Jonathan during debate in the Senate, Akpabio scolded me that l didn’t consult him before voting for Jonathan. That was how his hostility towards me started. Apart from that, l can’t think of any other thing l did to him.