A Governor's Soliloquy

It was one of those long nights. The Governor couldn't just sleep. He just sat there on his bed. Often, he would talk to himself. Staring at nothing in particular. Just then, I was ushered into his presence and without much preambles after I was introduced, I asked to know him.

Governor: Ha ha ha, who is this one, what a question? Where are you from, you must be from outer space if you can ask such a contemptuous question. Anywhere, I am Prince, Barrister, Doctor, Chief, Akparawa, His Excellency, the Executive Governor. I am sitting over the richest economy in Nigeria . And my election in April 2007 was simply put, God's will! Is that okay?

Question: I am aware of the honorary Doctorate degrees you bought from the University of Uyo and Nnamdi Azikiwe University , Awka in Anambra state. I know that you also used your position as the Commissioner for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs from 2003-2006 to collect all manner of titles but Barrister? Say the truth, did you really complete the Bar examinations?

Governor: Of course, I went to the Nigerian Law School at Victoria Island, Lagos , I wrote the examination.

Question: Please be more attentive, I said, did you complete the examinations?

Governor: Ehmn, ehmn, As far as I can remember, I went in for the examination but something very serious happened to me?

Question: Mr. Governor, would you please tell the world what happened. This is your moment of truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

Governor: Why don't you just leave that matter, it wasn't the first time I had that ugly experience.

Question: Ok, I shall come back to that but now, why do you say you are a prince, whose prince are you?

Governor: Uwo, you must be out of your mind and a total stranger not to know my pedigree as the scion of that great family of Ukana Ikot Pepper, Essien Udim.

Question: Prince, as a scion, why did members of that great family refuse to send you to school?

Governor: Some of them are dead; I even financed their burials, why don't you ask those who are still alive. I said sometimes ago that they were competing, struggling to marry my mom and not me, the son!

Question: I know who the true sons and daughters of that family are. Who was your own father? I only know about your mother who became your father. Would you submit yourself to a DNA test so that this little matter of sonship and scionship of that great family can be settled once and for all? Why did they reject you and claim that you were an Igboman, some even said your paternity was questionable?

Governor: At my age and position? Have I not become the most celebrated? Have you not seen my mansions in Ukanana, Uyo, Lekki, Abuja , South Africa , London , the US , why do I need a DNA test? Afterall I am not the first and won't be the last human being who didn't know who fathered him. As far as I am concerned, inspite of rejection by jealous members of that family, I still became Commissioner and Governor. Pox on them.

Question: Now to that little matter of the Law School examination, tell me what happened?

Governor: Does it really matter now? I thought you would overlook it, as the world has now accepted me for what I am today. But what the hell is it, it was just a momentary loss of my mind! I went nuts, it just couldn't be explained. That's what happened. And I left the place.

Question: Did it ever happen again?

Governor: I didn't want to give credit to her, I mean that old lady of songs, I can't remember the year but the next time I ran amok, she took me to Onna, her place and I got some relief from a very powerful native doctor there.

Question: Oh, is that the little secret which she has kept all these years and keeps on threatening that one day she will reveal it?

Governor: Maybe? But isn't everybody susceptible to illness? Am not superhuman.

Question: But madness is a different ball game oh. Are psychiatrics seeing you often now?

Governor: Yes, infact I am on medication. Just that sometimes, I rave like King Saul of the Bible.

Question: What a pity, King Saul had David to play the harp and lyre to soothe him, who does this for you?

Governor: Ha ha aha, you don't know anything, here in my state, everyone around me hails me. They just crouch and sing my praises, even when I am out of my mind, they clap and cheer. They don't know I am suffering.

Question: Have you undergone any therapy?

Governor: Yes, when I became Commissioner and then Governor. But when you are sick in the mind, it takes time, effort and patience. I'm told it will never go away so I must live with it. My medication contains cocaine and sometimes a shot of heroin to keep me calm and steady. Actually, this explains why I attend events late because I have to wait for the effect of these drugs to wear out before I step out, my brother, at times, it is very frustrating.

Question: But why are you so hard on your former boss, knowing that he brought you up, almost made you his deputy governor, made you chairman of his Second term re-election campaign and appointed you as a Commissioner in the noblest ministry in the state? Basically, he deliberately groomed you and gave you a platform to stand and rise? I recall when one Barrister Assan Assan wrote a petition to the EFCC, a page was devoted to you as a very corrupt official but your boss protected you as his son?

Governor: Yes, he did all that for me and more. He became the father I never had but when it mattered most to me and my ego, he rejected me. I called him father but he showed me that I wasn't his son. He acted like 0konkwo in Chinua Achebe's “Things Fall Apart” in dealing with Ikemefuna. Did God create me to suffer rejection at every turn? My supposed family rejected me at birth and I lived through that only for a man I took for a father to reject me as a grown up man. You won't understand. His actions awakened my demons. Just ask psychologists what rejection does to a human being. And to suffer rejection twice. It is traumatic, it makes you lose confidence in yourself and in people and much more. It makes you mad at people and the world. It turns people into criminals. Go and study Stalin and General Abacha. Show me a dictator and a sadist, and you are seeing a rejected person.

Question: Did you say demons, is that why there are so many cases of kidnappings and killings in your state? .

Governor: I don't send those boys oh? But they read my body language and think that's the best way to soothe me and calm me down when I am angry at those who don't wish me well.

Question: On Dr Christ Ekong, before you arrived from Lagos, he was the sole leader of all the cult groups in the State, he formed them into one group, the State Youth Caucus, he is said to have contributed N400 million into your campaign and mobilized all the cult groups to work for you. He was your colleague, you did so many things together, and you gave him ransom money to secure the release of those Stemco expatriates, why did you turn against him?

Governor: It is a small matter, he should have learnt from Ambassador Samm Edam that no leader wants to compete for space with another person. When we started and Akpan, I mean the Bishop behaved as if we were co-governors, I had to make it clear to him that there can't be two captains in one ship.

Question: Have you been listening to the CAN Chairman lately?

Governor: Leave that one for now. He knows how much money and materials I put into his Bishopric. If he misses a line in our script, we will send him to the United States of America to answer for his role in Hospital equipment scams. I am sure he still remembers that American “woman missionary” who spent a month with him in Uyo. His members will ask who that woman was and where she is now.

Question: What about the other one, who directed that the burial programme of the late Oku Ibom be confiscated at the funeral because of that insertion on page 22?

Governor: Oh, my brother, I think he has finished his mansion now. I always laugh when I see him.

Question: Why do you laugh at him?

Governor: Wonders they say shall never end, well, Saul became Paul. Maybe he has changed but his body language makes me feel otherwise. You see, he was once so worldly as a priest that he took church money to be doubled for him so he can keep a part for himself. He was simply conned and he lost out in the process. And while serving in Ibesikpo, he was locked out of the church over conduct unbecoming of a priest. They better continue to preach in my favour or else...

Question: Since December last year, monthly payment of salaries to workers in the state has not been as at when due, what is the reason for this?

Governor: It's not easy. We keep trying but you know we must survive first. I mean, you must remain in power before you think of other people. Though we now receive so much money from the Federation Account and our internally generated revenue has improved, we face so much opposition from very powerful forces and in Nigeria , money talks. There's no point, it makes no sense politically to say let me make Civil servants happy while your opponents are working hard to throw you out. So for me, I must survive, my government must survive. We spend so much to make sure that EFCC does not disgrace me and my aides, we spend so much money to make sure that the security agencies do not embarrass my aides, and even in Aso rock, we spend so much to push some of our interests through. I know it's difficult but Civil servants must bear with us. They know that it wasn't like this when we started. They should be patient.

Question: Your people say there's so much hunger in the state

Governor: They better wait to see what I will do if I win for a Second term. They will see hunger. They will feel it. Everyone will worship me and pray in my name before they eat. They better wait and see. Let me tell you, don't joke with an “emerging tiger o”, I fear no foe, big small or old.

Question: There are questions about your inflation of road contracts in the state.

Governor: Well, my people are happy. Members of that great family are happy, Ukanana people are very happy that I have become the richest African alive. Can't you see the mansion built for me by J.B in my village? Don't you know I have a private jet and an Aeroplane which represents one of my investments in a fast growing Airline in the Country? Where would I have gotten money to acquire all these including the Rolls Royce, Jaguar and Cadillac packed in my home in the village? Do you know I spent over N3 billion to settle the Peace and Reconciliation Committee sent to resolve the party matter in my state? Where would I have had the money to run Aruma and the State Police Command, the EFCC, members of the National Assembly from my State, I bought houses for all of them in Abuja and jeeps. Do you know how much I spend on all these groups which spring up to endorse me everyday?

Question: What's your relationship with your SSG?

Governor: That one? He hardly talks but walks around with a dagger in his cloak. You must be very careful with him. See what he did to our former boss? That one over promoted him, from Director of Budget to Permanent Secretary and made him the Commissioner for Finance but he turned his back on him. Whoever betrays one can betray another. So one must be careful. Sometimes ago, I tried to shake him but we have gone too far and too deep in too many deals together. Careful is the word in relating with him. Just recently, he was dismissed from the Freemasons.

Question: There's this matter of the kidnap of Mr Nsim Ekere's father?

Governor: Well, Nsi is trying to be smart. I don't trust him anymore. I don't trust anybody. I deliberately stopped funding Akiipoc because I wasn't sure about him again. I know he still has some money and must be forced to shed some weight. The boys got N70m from the General and that was some token.

Question: But what will become of these “cult boys in your team”. Are you serious you want them to denounce cultism?

Governor: I thought I was empowering them by engaging them as Personal Assistants, Special Assistants, Board Members, Council Chairmen, Councilors and Commissioners. But they have overdone things. They now compete to buy guns. I wonder why the Police is afraid of them because I expected them to help me sort out this mess but that's the way it is in Nigeria. The security Agencies are on the side of rich criminals.

Question: Can you relive your experience during the near plane mishap involving you in Port Harcourt last year?

Governor: God is really great-oh my brother. I almost perished for nothing; I was scared stiff, totally rattled. And to think that several innocent people would have gone up in flames with me. I think it was because of those people in the plane that day that the plane did not crash. Don't mess with any pilot or his property-oh. I had a crush on one of the sexiest movie stars whose guy flies the skies. I had one billion naira on offer just to watch her one on one overnight. Somehow, trust Nigerians, my fantasy leaked and before I knew it, this guy who flies decided to shake me in a show of solidarity with one of their own. Thank God, I wasn't dead. The story would have been different. I wouldn't have even lived to tell the story.

Question: What did you do to that aide of yours who declared he had a billion naira in one of his bank accounts a couple of months after you assumed office when he wanted to travel to the United States ?

Governor: That one, he is still there. What can I do? He is one of my “cousins”. I was a P.A. to his late father in the early eighties. The truth is, I am a hostage to some of these aides. The EFCC should have taken action but they are carrying on as if both of us have immunity. That young man has really embarrassed me. Do you know what? The huge amount was traced to the ransom which his caucus collected from several kidnap victims. I had to change the venue of his late father's 10th anniversary so people won't see what he has achieved in just two years. If Nigerians were a revolutionary people, he would have been endangered specie. They should know I can only protect them now. Nobody knows what the anti-corruption agencies will do once I'm out of office.


Questions: You have won several Awards so far, what's the magic?

Governor: Simple, get top editors of the major national newspapers as consultants. Service them monthly. If their Proprietors are in any Peace, Reconciliation or fact finding committee, show-out-of-this-world hospitality to such a committee. If a media organization also focuses on hosting musical concerts, accept to co-host or sponsor such concerts. I paid N140 million - to have such a concert in my state last Christmas and that was what earned me a place as an emerging Tiger in Nigeria . Look, everybody wants a piece of the cake, dividends of democracy. The more you pay in cash; I mean real cash, hard currency, the more your ovation and celebration. And I am sure that you know that almost all the top Editors of Newspapers and Magazines in Nigeria have become Consultants who are in the payroll of politicians, Governments, and even business organizations.

Just as one made to record the last question, the ghosts of Episco, Friday Okoiso, the only daughter of Abak Council Chairman and countless number of babies stolen and slaughtered for rituals, Ekaette Okon of NTA 12, Uyo, Maria Ikpe, the Ekpeyong brothers, Hon Umo Udonwa, Dr Justin Edet, and the women killed inside the Qua Iboe Church at Iwok, Nsit Atai, danced in and the Governor erupted in a thunderous shout and ran out of the room. Oh, what a dream! And I awoke.
Bayo Ogundipe wrote in from Lagos