The Emergence of Akpabio’s Senate Presidency and Shifting Dynamics in Akwa Ibom

From June 13 henceforth, the face of Akwa Ibom politics has worn a new look. The springboard of the new look was not from Uyo, the state capital, but Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, where Senator Godswill Akpabio was elected president of the Nigerian senate that Tuesday morning….

Akpabio, who succeeds Ahmed Lawan, is Nigeria’s 15th Senate President. It is the first time Akwa Ibom, which was created in 1987 produces Nigeria’s Senate President.

Joseph Wayas, the country’s fourth senate president, who held office between 1979 and 1983, hailed from Cross River, the mother state of Akwa Ibom. The first senate president was the iconic Nnamdi Azikiwe, who later became the country’s president under a parliamentary system of government.

Beyond entailment of the office of the Senate President and the euphoria trailing Akpabio’s assumption of the coveted office, the newest political development of the politician commonly called “uncommon transformer” has dovetailed to new characteristics and anticipated new dynamics that will shape Akwa Ibom politics.

While the jostling for the 15th senate president lasted, Akwa Ibom people, irrespective of party affiliations and political ideology, were in unison in identifying with the aspiration of the former two-term governor of Akwa Ibom.

However, likely in the spirit of furthering the cold war with his estranged godfather, Udom Emmanuel, the immediate past governor of the state, was said to be one of the backers of Orji Uzor Kalu, who later backed out from the race for senate president. But owing to the personalised and Nicodemus nature of the scheme, as well as its unpopularity, the project to thwart Akpabio’s senate presidency ambition could not attract supporters in the state.

Immediately Akpabio emerged the senate president, after a keen contest with Abdulaziz Yari, whom the former defeated with a gap of 17 votes, reconciliation from opposition camps and Akpabio’s other political adversaries in Akwa Ibom spontaneously sprout out to the senate president’s open arms.

Partisan leanings disappear. The wings of Akwa Ibom All Progressives Congress (APC’s) internal squabbles got clipped, at least for a while. With feelings of sectional solidarity behind the new senate president, air of ecstasy was breezing everywhere in the state and outside the state where two or more Akwa Ibom persons gather around that Tuesday, hence brotherly jollification defined every social setting where Akwa Ibom persons were.

Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom led high powered government officials and other politicians to Abuja where Akpabio treated guests and his supporters to lavish reception.

Mentioning his pride that “a son of Akwa Ibom” is the senate president, the governor launched himself to the hearts of friends and foes following his announcement at the reception podium that “today all party politics have been broken down.”

Chief Don Etiebet also released a congratulatory message to Akpabio shortly after the latter emerged senate president. In the build-up to 2023 general elections, on ground of zoning factor, the former petroleum minister and Board of Trustee member of the APC had led inter-party onslaught against the senatorial ambition of the former senate minority leader.

His message, the title holder of “Atuekong Annang” (Field Marshal of Annang tribe), stated: “Congratulations to my great Annang son, Senator Godswill Obot Akpabio, for being elected the President of the Senate of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.

“You have fought a great fight and God has been with you all the way to this great and deserving success. May God continue to abide with you with grace and wisdom to continue in your uncommon services to your fatherland”.

The pivot of information communication technology (ICT) in Nigeria, who is esteemed as progenitor of political leaders from Akwa Ibom in the fourth republic, added: “Akwa Ibom State and, undoubtedly, all Akwa Ibomites are grateful to you and happy for this great achievement you have brought to the state and look forward to all of us, putting petty politics aside but to join hands together with the State governor, Pastor Umo Eno, to complete the uncommon transformation agenda of the state from a pedestrian state to a state of destination to all Nigerians.”

Some other political juggernauts in Akwa Ibom, who congratulated the senate president, included Umana Okon Umana, the immediate past Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Nsima Ekere, former deputy governor under Akpabio’s governorship, among others.

Dorn Cklaimz Enamhe, Akpabio’s friend of over 40 years traces what he described as “Akpabio’s destiny to great things” to their days at the University of Calabar in the 1980s when he (Akpabio) was speaker of Student Union Government. He told Daily INDEPENDENT that Akpabio was “extremely brilliant and daring.” He mentioned other qualities in Akpabio that created uniqueness for him to include “dreaming big, hard work, consistency, determination”, among others.

With the new political position, Akpabio has, incontrovertibly, become the APC political leader in Akwa Ibom, and party faithful have already started gravitating towards his end.

Since partisan leanings and counter offensives cannot totally disappear in party system democracy, it is also expected that the plum office of the senate president would evoke some sort of balance of terror from Akpabio’s end in checkmating certain prodding of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the state.

The first instance of gauging counter forces between the governor-led ruling PDP and the senate president-led opposition APC will likely be local government elections due later this year. If the state government decides to extend the tenure of elected council officials or replace them with unelected persons, as it has been common practice, it is expected that the face of the main opposition party would readily rise to the occasion, especially as such political arrangement falls short of democratic norms and constitutionalism.

In event of conducting the local government elections, there is also probability that Akpabio-led APC would take bold position in influencing the state independent electoral commission to conduct fair and credible poll where all parties can squarely slug out for elective positions against the commonly obtained scenarios where candidates of the ruling party emerge almost unopposed.

Still on the political flank, it is also expected that Akpabio will lead the opposition party’s offensive in next general elections to have more seats at federal and state legislative houses and possibly make a good show at the governorship contest.

By virtue of being the third in hierarchy of position in the Nigerian federal government, Akpabio has potentials of becoming Acting President should anything warrant the removal of the president and vice president from office. One of such eventualities could emanate from the petition of the election of President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, which is currently being adjudicated upon by five-man panel of jurists at the Court of Appeal.

Aside from politics, the people’s minds are pregnant with many hopes that Akpabio’s occupying of the nation’s number three office will deliver goodies in terms of amenities from the central government to Akwa Ibom and other states in the south-south part of the country.

Describing Akpabio as a detribalized Nigerian and one, who has always protected his people interest right from his days as commissioner in Akwa Ibom, which he believes his performance still remain unrivalled, Enamhe sees “a lot of prospects for the south-south region of Nigeria”.

Beyond the mainstay of the job of presiding over the Senate and the National Assembly, how Akpabio would factor into the hope and anticipation that his senate president’s position springs up will come in handy in evaluation of the “uncommon transformer”.

There are also fears in some quarters that the office of the senate president may enhance Akpabio to become chief supplier of names from Akwa Ibom to the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC) for investigation, detention and, possibly, prosecution.

So far, with the Akpabio’s ascendancy of the office of the Senate President, the dynamics of the politics of the entire Akwa Ibom has changed; if not for good, at least within the period the Nigeria’s 15th Senate President will hold sway