FOR THE RECORD THE INEVITABILITY OF CHANGE

BEING AN ADDRESS PRESENTED BY PASTOR (MRS.) VICTORIA ASIAN THE NATIONAL WOMEN COORDINATOR OF POSITIVE CHANGE 2011 ORGANIZATION ON THE OCCASION OF THE GRAND WOMEN RALLY IN SUPPORT OF SENATOR JOHN JAMES UDOEDEHE GOVERNORSHIP AMBITION HELD ON FRIDAY 16TH APRIL, 2010 AT PRIMARY SCHOOL AFAHA OFFOT, UYO.

PROTOCOL
It is indeed my privilege to welcome you to this August gathering of women from all walks of life, from within and outside Akwa Ibom State, converging in a grand rally in support of Positive and inevitable change as personified in the Governorship ambition of Distinguished Senator John AkpanUdoedehe come 2011.

I feel deeply touched by your voluntary display of compassion for this cause for the emancipation of Akwa Ibom State from the shackles of neo-colonial slavery as demonstrated in the open display of cultism, kidnapping, violence against women and the down trodden and multiplication of poverty in the face of abundant human and material resources in Akwa Ibom State as the highest receiver of revenue from the Federation Account and the internally Generated Revenue.
That this revenue is concentrated in the hands of a certain family cabal is no longer news, what is news however, is that men and women continue to keep silence, but like Professor Wole Soyinka would have said, the man died He who keeps silence in the midst of tyranny, as mothers who are direct receivers of the pains of this misrule, I welcome you to this gathering and appreciate your stoic resolve to ensure that positive change is inevitable come 2011.
Before going further, permit me to remind you in the words of Jeande La Bruyere, the French Moralist who said in 1688 that “there exist some evils so terrible and some misfortune so humble that we dare not think of them … but if they happen to fall on us, we find ourselves stronger than we imagined, we grapple with our ill luck and behave better than we expected we should.
Ladies and Gentlemen, we do not need the wisdom of Solomon to know that there are terrible evil and misfortune in Akwa Ibom State, a State once reputed as the land of promise and presently turning into a state of hopelessness, helplessness, insecurity, fear, poverty and despair.
It is however, gratifying to inform you that in the mist of this political ineptitude and economic meltdown, there is a divine intervention in Senator John James Akpan Udoedehe, a man of destiny sent from God as a witness of light.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, permit me to draw your attention to this divine intervention as recorded in the Gospel according to St. John Chapter 1: 6-8, which says : “there was a man sent from God whose name was John. The same came for a witness of the light that all men through him might believe: He was not that light but was sent to bear witness of that light”.
Our beacon of hope, our instrument for the actualization of Positive Change is Senator John James Akpanudoedehe divinely sent by God to bear witness of light since presently darkness seems to have covered the land of Akwa Ibom State forcing the hitherto educated men and women to live in ignorance, perpetual fear of helplessness and mental inertia.
As you are aware of our role model, Senator J. J. Akpanudoedehe is a widely traveled and widely read gentlemen with tested political pedigree and service in Akwa Ibom State and the nation, having served as a one time Chairman of Uyo Local Government Council, a Senator of the Federal Republic and a Minister, a member of the executive council of the federation, as a foundation member of the ruling People Democratic Party (PDP), the astute politician has a political structure spread across the state having served the nation meritoriously with unblemished record as a Senator and Minister of State of Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He is therefore fit and proper person to be entrusted with the sacred responsibility of serving the people of Akwa Ibom State as Governor come 2011.
Ladies and gentlemen, you are all witnesses to the fact that since the inception of the present administration in 2007, our state had witnessed the vicious circle of rat race that we have been made to run.
How we have come the present state will make a wonderful volume of book, but none of us can deny the existence of this circle of lies, circle of mediocrities, circle of misgovernance and leadership ineptitude, circle of poverty, circle of dying industries, circle of uninformed, uncultured and sycophantic leaders in all spheres of our life.
The people of Akwa Ibom State have been caged into lack of vision and courage to see beyond their noses, the attitudinal change in our people who refuse to abandon shocks of their environment even though an opening exist for them to get out of the suffering because the instruction to free them from the suffering is abnormal and diminished.
In the case of Akwa Ibom State, the denials we have been made to undergo by the irresponsible government that operates in our state has become a norm. We see them as a way of life we all get entrapped seeking to survive in a useless able where few can, and as such we lack the motivation or instinct to ask for a change.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies/Gentlemen today as was not intended to bore you with long speeches but to draw your attention to the fact that the future of our children is to be secured and assured.
We as mothers must rise with one accord and stand firm to say that enough is enough of the current spending spree of our resources in Abuja and in the palaces of the traditional rulers of the North in a desperate effort to secure a second term mandate when the first term mandate was mismanaged; enough of the strangulation of the machinery of Government by a family cabal, cultists and school dropouts whose only credentials are the ability to display power and violence.
Enough with the current attempt to cage the press and rights of the citizens to air their views and offer advice where necessary in an attempt to give the government a sense of direction.
Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen, let me conclude this short address with the words of John Wesley, an English preacher who in 1915 counseled as follows: “do all the good you can by all the means you can, in all the ways you can in all the places you can, at all the times you can to all the people you can, as large as ever you can”.
I thank you for listening and committing to this act of brevity exhibited by you in attending this rally in support of Positive Change to the hands of God. Amen.
Positive Change
Inevitable

Victoria Asian
National Women Leader