Gov. Udom Emmanuel’s windfall and his bag of lies

By Ifreke Ekanem

Last week the federal government paid N10 billion to Akwa Ibom State government as its share of the Paris
Club refund. This is the second tranche of such payment, coming seven months after the state received N14.5 billion in January 2017 in the first tranche.

In both instances, the state received the highest of these refunds among the 36 states; and in both cases, the governor
was reluctant to announce the receipts.

As I write this, Gov. Udom Emmanuel has not stated how he spent the first installment of N14.5 billion. There’s been total lack of accountability and transparency in the manner he manages our finances. For the second N10 billion
payment, the governor has written to the state House of Assembly, informing the lawmakers that the funds would be used to pay a backlog of salaries and pensions.

But this is an astonishing revelation as the governor and his commissioners had stated repeatedly in the past that the
state does not owe salaries and pensions, and so does not have any backlog of arrears to clear.

So where did Mr. Udom Emmnuel suddenly ‘manufacture’ this backlog he
wants to pay with N10 billion? And how much are the arrears worth? Who are these civil servants who are being owed N10 billion? If not N10 billion, how much
exactly would be spent? On our part, we insist that Mr Udom Emmanuel is not sincere about the issue of salary backlog because he had told us repeatedly in the past that the government is not owing anybody a kobo in salaries and pensions.

In fact, as recently as the last Labour Day (May 1, 2017), the state NLC Chairman, Comrade Etim Ukpong, openly announced that no worker in the state is owed salary.

So we ask: why does the governor intend to spend N10 billion to pay salary and pensions arrears that don’t exist? Is this another way of siphoning the money
as in the past? We must note that Akwa Ibom people are frustrated with the opaqueness and lack of transparency and absence of sincerity and honesty with which Gov. Udom Emmnuel is managing the state’s finances.

Information available from the Federal Ministry of Finance indicates that Akwa Ibom state government has earned over N420 billion in federal allocations since May 2015 till today; and from the state
Ministry of Finance, our total IGR receipts within the same period are N50 billion.

If we add the N24.5 billion Paris Club refunds, the state’s total incomes amount to about half a trillion Naira (N500 billion) in the 25 months Gov Udom has been in office. This is a huge amount of income and what exactly has Mr Udom spent this money on, apart from the pencil and toothpick factories, which, in any case, are working in fits and starts? The few road projects, including the renovation of Eket township roads, which Gov. Udom has executed in the last two years have been largely uncompleted,
although they’re commissioned with fanfares.

The Nsit Attai-Ibesikpo road commissioned two weeks ago in a big
celebration is only one-third done! While Gov. Akpabio constructed roads with over inflated costs, Udom’s style is to award a road project, execute it half way and abandon the other half undone, with the contractor being paid in full for the whole road length.

For example, in a typical 3-km road executed by this government, only a portion, say one km would be completed and commissioned in a big ceremony, while the rest of the road is abandoned.
Meantime, the contractors would have been paid in full with an understanding to ‘kick back’ to the governor and government officials.

It is a new ‘innovation’ in graft and
public deception not seen before by our people. In managing our public finances, Udom Emmanuel is largely inspired by the cunning, deception and the
craftmanship of his predecessor.

Throughout the eight years of the Akpabio administration, Akwa Ibom
government has always been the highest receiver of federal allocations.

Together with 13% derivation, IGR,
allocations from Excess Crude Account, ecological funds and ‘exceptional’ receipt of N400 billion from recovered oil wells, Akpabio earned over N3 trillion in eight years, of which over one trillion was stolen out rightly and dashed out to cronies, party and government officials,
cronies, family, etc. Akpabio was also unparalleled in financial wastages, wastefulness and recklessness.

His key projects like the Tropicana Entertainment complex, Sheraton Hotel, Ikot Ekpene, pipe-jacking drainage
system, Airport terminal building and Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road which altogether have gulped over N400 billion have remained uncompleted and abandoned.

In all these and other projects, the costs were fully padded and kickbacks paid to the former governor and his brothers.

Akpabio also borrowed recklessly from the banks and left huge debt obligations of over N450 billion to contractors,
notably Julius Berger. It is unknown to many Nigerians that Julius Berger has not been paid for building the football stadium in Uyo which was commissioned in 2014 with so much pomp and pageantry, with three West African Presidents and the then Nigerian leader in attendance.

If therefore there are similarities between Udom and Akpabio in the manner they’ve been treating our money, it is because one is a stooge who has been
learning fast from his master.

Ekanem lives in Uyo