Some politically instigated armed youths parading themselves on the media space as Unyekisong Akwa Ibom, daringly gave Governor Udom Emmanuel a month ultimatum to withdraw the endorsement of his Lands and Water Resources Commissioner, Pastor Umo Eno, as his preferred governorship aspirant to fly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gubernatorial flag in 2023.
The armed youths threatened not to keep quiet and allow Udom impose a candidate on the people without allowing them to freely make a choice of who will govern them. Though they didn’t mention the nature of the action they would take if the governor failed to succumb, the self-acclaimed militants, however, said, failure to accede to their demand will be ‘’disastrous.”
In a statement by Ekpo Ekpo, who claimed the rank of a General, Commander Akan Bassey, and Commander Sampson Umanah, they claimed that the governor’s action was a huge threat to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, family and the entire state.
“The endorsement of Pastor Umo Eno is not only a threat to the PDP family, but the entire state, which will bring anarchy, insecurity and killings. The nomination of a particular candidate by the governor and leader of the party is totally unjust and unfair to other governorship aspirants in the state.
“After carefully studying the report submitted by credible sources, we have come to the conclusion that the endorsement of Pastor Umo Eno is not for the benefit of the state but would rather serve as a POS and commissioner to Udom Emmanuel after leaving office to siphon money”, they said.
So far, it seems most self-seeking ‘political leaders’ and their foot soldiers are ignorant of the fact that Governor Udom cannot single-handedly install a governor in the state. The ultimate decision rests with the electorate. Nigeria operates a plural party system and as such, the popular choice of the people can win the governorship election on the platform of any other party since there is no room for independent candidacy in our electoral legislation.
Insulting Udom is one of the tragedies of leadership. But saying that he was wrong to have a preferred aspirant, infringes on his fundamental human rights. However, what is bothering us here is the seeming calculated attempt to return Akwa Ibom to the dark years of avoidable political violence. The fiendish bid to reduce the state to a war-turn habitat does not appear to be popular with the greater majority of the political sovereigns.
For the 2023 power seekers, it will dent their profiles badly if the security agencies eventually profile them as accepting war as normal, practical and realistic. I think it might interest ‘aggrieved’ power gladiators to note that a pacifist like Martin Luther King, Jnr was respected for his moral strength. With the maintain peace mantra, it seems Udom is just trying to harp on that.
Violence cannot guarantee an industrialized Akwa Ibom nor lift millions of our young people from the choked labour market. What will is sustainable pacifism. Undoubtedly, there is a wide gulf between pacifism and passivism. For those who know better, pacifism means peace-loving. On the other hand, passivism means being passive. Though the two words sound alike, people tend to occasionally confuse one for the other. Pacifists are activists working for peace.
Pacifism involves various positive strategies for making peace. It, however, takes plural forms, all of them opposing war and other forms of violence, and offering peaceful, nonviolent alternatives. This is what is expected of Akwa Ibom political leaders. Not to heat up the system. Consequences of pro-war politics include deaths of innocent citizens, internal displacement, refugees, among all the other evils of war.
