Wednesday 25 January 2017

Our Senator and the “small boy” BY NSIBIET JOHN



Our Senator and the “small boy” BY NSIBIET JOHN Our Senator and the “small boy” BY NSIBIET JOHN

Senator representing Eket Senatorial District Chief Nelson Effiong was unambiguous in his description of Barr. Ini Emeobong the Publicity Secretary of the PDP in Akwa Ibom State as a small boy. 

Of course people say or would want to say our Senator was furious.

For a while Chief Effiong just decided to set in motion a game he may not be able to play to the end. A game himself cannot even play.

Let this writer be very clear. I do not have any challenge with Nelson Effiong leaving PDP for APC. It is his inalienable right. There is freedom of expression. There is freedom of identification. Afterall, he is justified and will be justified with the maxim that explains that in politics, there is no permanent friend and there is also no permanent enemy. But a permanent interest. 


As a journalist with so much ears to the ground, I had been detailed earlier that Chief Effiong was set to join the APC. I had since last year about October, 2016 observed Effiong’s parley with the APC.

I had explained to my friend, a youth leader of PDP from one of the Local Governments that make up Eket Federal Constituency that Efffiong has since engaged in APC Affairs. He suggested that we investigate further. So when it happened, he concluded that I was a prophet.

Again, I had tipped my friend Thomas Thomas in the APC earlier in 2017 that sooner very soon that his party will receive a Senator from Akwa Ibom. My friend had screamed saying he suspects that Senator may be OBA or Godswill Akpabio. I told him none of the two. At least from what I observed and have been monitoring. When it happened, his first reaction was “DOES NELSON EFFIONG THINKS APC is a dumping ground?” 

Whether Nelson Effiong chosed APC as a dumping ground or not, the story is short he is now an APC faithful. Over.

Like I said earlier, one does not earnestly have qualms with Effiong’s membership of the APC.  But a situation where the former speaker leaves his PDP into APC and then drops with it some very unsubstantiated level of blackmails against the State Governor and the Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Mr. Udom Emmanuel and Barr. Ini Ememobong respectively sufficiently shows that Nelson Effiong is indeed a drowning man who is holding unto anything for help.  It presents our Senator as a roaring lion seeking for whom to devour.

From the treatise presented by Nelson Effiong as to why he is leaving the party, PDP, it suggests a clear, very clear case of selfishness.  Or how else can we explain a situation where a distinguished senator of the Federal Republic of Nigeria will sit in a live radio programme to say the Governor has promised a woman in the person of Akon Eyakenyi a senatorial ticket and bla-bla-bla.

This man is being clever by half; he is actually running away from responsibilities.

He is running away from competition because he is a timid man.  If he was not timid, he would fight for what he feels belongs to him. He would ignore whatever assumption of Eyakenyi and challenge for the position he wants afterall he is already in pole position as a Senator to get victory. Politics is not for the lily livered and Nelson Effiong has just proven that.

Little wonder he is leads a blackmail spree on Udom and Ememobong. He argues that Udom is going about getting second term endorsements when the Governor had promised to serve one term and handover to an Oronian. Who told him such clap trap? What will that mean or may be Nelson Effiong thinks by saying that he is running on popular demands? Whatever he means by all the things he said.  

Not done yet, he fired blank at Ini Ememobong saying the Publicity Secretary of PDP is a small boy.  Yes, I agree he is a small boy. A small boy that possesses maturity, he is cool headed and represents a PAN-Akwa Ibom project unlike Nelson Effiong who is greedy, selfish, uncalculative and an ethnic jingoist.

Maybe Nelson Effiong thought he will be celebrated when he tells us the story of Udom’s one term agreement and Ini Ememobong’s small boy-ship.  
We are not interested in the story of a man who is yet to impact the lives of his Senatorial District more than a year into the red chambers of the National Assembly.

The assault on Ini Ememobong by Nelson Effiong is an insult to the younger generation. It is this primitive mentality of Nelson Effiong that made some people of Nelson Effiong’s generation to have treated the youths with disdain.  
But then our Senator should be reminded that the youths have since taken over and himself or a million of his likes will not have the ammunition to frighten us into our shells.

Our generation has come out and we are coming out strongly.  Ini Ememobong is a subset of this generation.

Our senator may take this as an insult but I can tell you Sir, this is no insult but information unsolicited for that the people you call small boys will show you that gone are the days people of your class, status and gesticulations will tie us to their apron strings.  

The small boys have come out and will rightly claim what belongs to them.  So do not even bother to intimidate or curry favour by describing people as Small Boys.

The small boys have started moving and we shall crush anyone who intends to be a cog in our wheel.  Even if such person is a senator.  Hoping that you don’t fall a victim.

My advice to Nelson Effiong is that he should repent and go to God in prayers because the Bible God’s Holy Book explains the duties of the youths and that of Elders in Joel 2:28. And on that scriptural accord I stand.

Come to think of this, is Nelson Effiong implying that Ini Ememobong should have waited to clock a certain age before he is given a responsibility to speak for Akwa Ibom PDP as their Publicity Secretary?

Hell, No Sir, Senator, you are wrong.  Every leader is ordained by God and the same God qualifies whom he ordains whether in leadership, governance and whatever.  

There is no justification on the path of our Senator to have described PDP spokesman as a small boy except that Effiong’s level of reasoning is that low. Senator Nelson Effion should check his moral standing. It is below par. It is that sad.

And this explains why my Senatorial District has not been heard in the red chambers of the National Assembly.

Nelson Effiong may not be alone in this school of thought where he sees nothing good in the younger generation.  We can only say Mr. Senator; you owe us and what you owe us you shall pay when the time comes.  

Our senator should always stay on the issues whenever issues are raised. Leaving the issue to discuss the person is a defeatist mentality.  And Nelson Effiong should purge himself of that.  

He should be concerned on how to reconcile the APC in Akwa Ibom State so that he does not only become another liability in his new party the way he is to the people of Eket Senatorial District whom he is presently claiming to represent.

Methinks, Senator Nelson Effiong should realize that Akwa Ibom State is gradually sliding off the hands of a few cabal which for sometimes now have held us hostage.  And the younger generation is a very reliable partner in this mission.

The grouse of the Oro born Senator is that Ini Ememobong in his few months as the Spokesman of the PDP has done so much for his popularity rating.  I personally do not think there is any need for Chief Effiong to jealous Barr. Ememobong. Jealousy will not add or subtract anything from our Senator’s small boy.

It would be rather instructive for the Senator to go nicodemusly at least to his small boy and ask certain questions.  Some years ago especially in Nelson Effiong’s time, the generation Ini Ememobong belongs to was treated with a back palm dismiss.  Looking back events have since led to the recognition of this generation as an integral partner in nation building.

Distinguished Senator should watch his rhetoric next time because between his older self and small Boy Ini Ememobong, they are miles apart in terms of creativity, leadership styles, honesty and focus.

While Ini Ememobong possesses these attributes in excess, Nelson Effiong lacks them.

The story of Nelson Effiong as Speaker of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly is still very fresh in our minds.  The sour taste of his timid representation in the red chambers spoils our day.  

So far, no one should take Nelson Effiong’s war with the younger generation serious because any war against the younger generation is a war against God himself.  And when any tribe waged any war against the Israelites in the Bible, history holds it that the result is always unpleasant. The younger generation is the Israelites of this world.

Looking back and with all due respect to our Senator, he would be intellectually dishonest not to acknowledge the sacrifice the younger generation which he is waging war against has done for him.  He will be ungratefully ungrateful if he fails to appreciate the PDP Publicity Secretary for what Ini Ememobong has done for him over the years.  Even as he saunters on his very poor representation of the good people of Eket Senatorial District.
Obviously, Chief Nelson Effiong will have to undertake a course on how to serve politically.  Because what he is presently putting in is a far cry from reality and in his native wisdom he initiates a game of war against the generation that for now holds the future of our dear state and country.  
Distinguished Senator will have to purge himself of syndromes that presents him as an unserious person in the eyes of matured minds because the world have since progressed beyond the level of reasoning Nelson Effiong is still into.
At the moment and beyond the now, opinions will definitely be divided on Nelson Effiong’s vituperations against the younger generations with Ini Ememobong as his case study but it will be trite for Effiong to henceforth stay on the line of Sanity so that he doesn’t have an acoustic music to a rhythm he will not be able to dance to.
Our generation irrespective of party affiliation appreciates Ini Ememobong and his style.  This is because Barr. Ini Ememobong the guy our Senator describes as a small boy demonstrates uncommon passion brings glamorous enthusiasm and excellent creativity to his jobs.

No comments:

Post a Comment