Before the Senate Starts to Protect Akpabio’s Cesspit.
Many of us who have followed the uncommon Governor, Godswill Akpabio knew he will eventually rock the boat of the Senate if elected the Senate President of the 10th Senate. His poor leadership pedigree were a litany and too glaring to ignore. He was too unserious for such high positioning and lacked intellectual gravitas and suerveness needed to lead the institution of the Senate at a time in our history when leadership had become a serious challenge to our nation’s survival. Everything to Akpabio was for cracking jokes. He will laugh, play and ululate while Rome burns to ashes. He was nothing more than a court jester.
Akpabio became a metaphor to the fastly crumbling ethical values in leadership that has destroyed the moral fabrics of virtually all institutions of our country. As the nation crawled and debilitated in corruption and dovetailing in uncertainty, Akpabio and his Senate failed to aspire to higher leadership pedestals neither did he try to inspire hope among the citizens.
His latest scandals and indiscretion against a fellow Senator, Natasha Akpoti is both unethical, anecdotal and an uncommon display of his known recklessness. But what do we really expect men like Akpabio to bring for us as our leaders? to begin to reinvent themselves? and bring us what they do not really have? mbanu.
Akpabio’s character traits and leadership styles had been in public domain and known to us for at least the last 20 years when he trended as “uncommon” governor orchestrating “uncommon” shenanigans. His litany of “uncommon” ethos at the time of his praise worship was just a character trait that bespoke recklessness, corruption, unaccountability, graft, notoriety, unfathomable waste and colossal greed. With Akpabio, always expect a collateral damage waiting to happen.
This man has no business being in the Senate if this country ever worked but he’s down with us today as our Senate President presiding over our most important democratic institution. You cannot force him to resign because of our unique leadership selection process that elevates tribe, geopolitical zone, ethnicity, dialectical province, religion and most times, quota.
I feel pity for those who daily defend Akpabio amid his unceasing pathetic misdemeanors and distractions in the public lore with news trends linking him to implacable social media meltdowns. Just when you think you’ve heard it all, Akpabio releases another arching potopoto virology.
Godswill Akpabio was heard telling senators in the plenary session that money has been credited in their accounts for their holidays enjoyment while the nation watched the spill in utter disbelief. He again, while presiding in the plenary told Nigerians planning to protest economic hardship that they will be protesting, while they in the Senate would be eating and enjoying themselves. What a leader we have here?
He again trended notoriously when as the administrator of NDDC, a certain woman, Joy Nunie, a former MD of NDDC boasted to a bewildered nation how she slapped Akpabio for unsolicited sexual advances towards her. Akpabio’s scandals will make a book, but it is taking a toll on the integrity of the Senate he leads, a cruel irony.
Now that court cases has started splashing across the political landscape, where does it leave the institution of the Senate?, Natasha versus Akpabio, Akpabio versus Natasha, Mrs Akpabio versus Natasha etcetera. We are also expecting new court summons, Natasha’s husband versus Akpabio, Natasha’s husband versus Mrs Akpabio, Concerned Women in Nigeria politics versus Akpabio, Akpabio’s children versus Natasha and many more coming.
How else would one describe the persistent leadership reductionism and its attendant sociopolitical and economic cataclysm presently plaguing the nation. The present unspoken instability in the Senate appearing in whispers among members of the Senate will further degenerate unless the Senate as an institution embark on a self cleansing scheme to restore its dignity.
The Senate must listen to the former Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki who prognosticated an open door probe rather than just referring the heinous issues raised by Natasha to the Ethics committee to be treated in-house. The Senate under Akpabio must work hard to restore public trust and respect for that all important institution of democracy.
It is not the intention of this writer to outrightly call for the Senate President’s resignation based on his monumental moral deficits, but he must rein in and call his wife to order since she’s not a Senator and can’t be allowed to mingle in the Senate’s affairs. Akpabio or the Senate should also proactively take urgent and appropriate steps to purge the Senate institution of unethical and mendacious behaviors to save our fledgling democracy.
Dr. Engr Odo Ijere
