Chief Patrick Ekpotu: Slams Akpabio over comments

The controversial comment by the former governor of Akwa Ibom state, Senator Godswill Akpabio, that he would lead the “invasion” of the state in 2019, the same manner the infamous Adolf Hitler did to Poland, has continued to generate dust and anger among indigenes and stakeholders in the state.

The former governor had made the comment while addressing his supporters at a reception in his honour by some youths in Eket, Akwa Ibom state, after he dumped the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to join the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

Piqued by the Senator’s seeming indiscretions, his former deputy governor, in his first term as governor of the state, Chief Patrick Ekpotu, in a statement decried the former Senate Minority leader’s comment, describing it as “unfortunate, insulting to Akwa Ibom people and a threat to the peace in the state”, stressing that such attitude was unbecoming of a former governor, who had ruled the state for eight years.

Ekpotu: “It is a sign of unpardonable naiveté for anyone who has acquired the status of a statesman to make a statement which alludes to a lack of feeling for that senseless sacrifice of great number of human lives. This is where I differ in accepting that there must be a background limitation to freedom. Akpabio is my former governor whom I deeply respect and he knows this. But he does not have to be like most Nigerian statesmen whose frame of orientation still remain utterly illusory due to the accidental nature of their statesmanship. It is only statesmen with such system of orientation that give satisfying meaning to whatever comes out of their mouth, however awkward.

According to the ex deputy governor, “every evil arrives in the world a little at a time so that in pushing people into action, a painful experience is added to the voice of pure reason. His various Hitler-like invasions against opposition in the past, had unknown to him, conditioned the people of Akwa Ibom in readiness for his 2019 intentions.”

He stated that Akpabio, for many reasons, cannot seek to replay the cited invasion in present day Nigeria. “First, the Poland invasion was a joint one claimed to be a defensive action, with the Soviet Union, Danzig, and the Slovak contingent and the Senator has no allies safe the two House of Assembly and two Reps members from his community that defected with. Secondly, Britain and France were not convinced and declared war on Germany, and this is bound to play out during his invasion scheme following Akwa Ibom readiness and mistrust of his defection intentions. Thirdly, it led to the beginning of WW II with huge cost in human lives which no statesman should gamble with. Fourthly, Germany was to pay for it dearly and Hitler, unable to face the world he thought was in his pocket, was said to have committed suicide. That, essentially, led to the rule of force being supplanted by the rule of law.”

Ekpotu went further to query What, in this case, “Akpabio would be defending? With who, I mean allies, is he invading Akwa Ibom on APC’s behalf? What is his readiness to play the Hitler figure in his envisaged invasion? Hitler was Germany’s Commander-In-Chief and the last time I asked, the Senator is not the C-In-C in Nigeria. And the current C-In-C is different from the one he knew who could readily surrender a large degree of control of his security forces to him. And if Akpabio had such elastic endurance for tough times, why did he defect from the party he had everyone believe belonged to him? He would have acted like Hitler or surrendered himself to the consequences of his past.

“We are thought that man’s first act of freedom was disobedience to high command for which he suffered, got sanctioned and expelled from the garden thus bringing eternal suffering upon us. If Akpabio has chosen “invasion” as his own act of freedom in APC and his first act did not yield him personal suffering even though it did to a security Chief, he should know that his planned Hitler-like invasion of Akwa Ibom, in the continued act of freedom might very well not be like the first.” The former deputy governor stated.

Alluding to his former principal’s famed loquaciousness, Ekpotu said the senator likes to “simply make political statements just be ours of the euphoria of the occasion without considering the implication, especially in a democracy, and in this case, the insensibility in a State he had governed for eight years.”