Udom Emmanuel: David in Jesse’s Senatorial District

America is one country that believes that its president, the president of the world’s most powerful nation, must be a man of great accomplishment, a man of great intellect, and a man of puritan morality. Every politician who wants to run America must try to chalk up impressive credentials in the public or private sector in order that he would be able to flash these accomplishments as a witness that if appointed to the highest office in the land, he will deliver the goods.

This search for the best possible person, the brightest man who must have no lust in his heart or in his head, makes Americans dig into the past of any aspiring president, break open his closet, and bring to the surface whatever skeletons are there in the cupboard. Beyond breaking through the cobweb of morality, the emerging president must wear the toga of a superman.

There is glamour in politics and power. Its peacock beauty dazzles and hungers the vain and the flamboyant. It is the ambition of most men to wear the crown of power. Ambition is good because ambition is the chief priest of change, and the arch rebel against the status quo. In the iron hands of ambition, men are wont to bury yesterday in shame, wave to today an eager farewell and roll out the red carpets to tomorrow.

Yet, ambition is not necessarily the celebration of the ego nor a salute to trivia. Ambition is a canalization of ingenuity, of brilliance, of vision, of grand strategies and of tactics. Ambition should be a great revolution in thought and ideas. But make due allowances for wishful thinking masquerading as ambition.

Akwa Ibom is a blessed State. The State stands firmly on a tripod of Uyo, Ikot Ekpene and Eket Senatorial Districts. Major infrastructure and political positions in the State are often distributed along these major political divides. For instance the big cake, the governorship position, rotates around these districts.

It will be too long a distance to trek into the thick forest of Nigeria’s political history, where Akwa Ibom has a lushly vegetated hectare. This is due to the epileptic supply of democracy in Nigeria since 1960. The military had taken the lion share of political leadership in the den of the lion of Africa. Therefore, it is safe to talk from the advent of the current democratic dispensation which has run for fifteen years today since 1999.

When it started, in Akwa Ibom State, Uyo Senatorial District, through Obong Victor Attah, took the first shot. Attah reigned for eight years. Thereafter, in 2007, the incumbent, Chief Godswill Akpabio stepped in for Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District. He is due out in 2015. That leaves Eket Senatorial District the unarguable heir to the throne, no matter who is conducting the experiment in the political laboratory.

Interestingly, Eket during Akpabio’s era has had three deputy governors. There is this unwritten colonial football rule “three corners make one penalty.” As if to borrow from that unpopular soccer rule, three deputy governors will make one governor in 2015. It is a penalty kick that Eket senatorial district must score. Therefore, written or unwritten, the governorship seat of Akwa Ibom State in 2015 belongs to Eket. That is the verdict of the large army of the masses-for whom promises are made, from whom the noisy choruses are expected, and from whom grievances and demands sprout. That is the verdict of those who give the political process its essence. That is the verdict of the owners of sovereignty in the land.

However, granted that the governorship is for Eket Senatorial District, the doctrine of equity, fairness and good conscience requires that consideration should be given to those federal constituencies in Eket Senatorial District that neither benefited from the deputy governorship nor ministerial appointments. It is the only way to go to equity with clean hands.

Zooming on Eket, who among the sons of Jesse  will the mantle fall on? Fishers of men have had their nets filled with catches of many colours – those with scary scales, those with slippery bodies and those who will shock all, including the ‘fishermen.’ Of course, democracy is supposed to be the very antithesis of dictatorship. Hence, everyone is qualified to seek for an opportunity to serve the people. In fact to have such ambition is a display of patriotism.

Unfortunately, sometimes, ambition cannot help being a god that fails. It thus becomes but a frail reed against the tide of events. This is largely because fate does often interferes in the affairs of men and women. Ambition, like all plans, assumes tomorrow will remain faithful to the certainties of today. Sometimes, this is a flawed judgment. When the rules that govern our game plan change, our cookies just crumble.

Those Jesse’s sons who hitherto prided themselves as the anointed ones for the guber kingship had their cookies crumble because a David called Udom Emmanuel was somewhere being groomed on how to shepherd the people of a state named after God. He is young, has a beautiful countenance and goodly to look. God fished him out for a journey ahead. All attempts to have paraded other ‘kings’ failed because the anointing belonged to someone else.

It will then be a grave danger to give support to other sons of Jesse from Eket or even Uyo Senatorial districts when there is a David. That will amount to breeding maggots in an apple-like Akwa Ibom. It can only be likened to putting a knife through the heart of the State, and a masterly slide over a slippery terrain. That way, our state will age without growing, and citizens will despair because of scarcity of hope. Is that what Akwa Ibom wants?

The sprint should not be for those with fingers in every pie. If Udom Emmanuel joins the race, he will be every inch a step ahead of other contenders. By his credentials and accomplishments, even at such a comparatively young age, he has what it takes to match the desire to do with the competence to accomplish.

With a background of deft economic management skills, and a natural bent for embracing novel ideas, Udom Emmanuel will rise up to the compelling need to maximize public fund for the good of the majority of the people. His exploits in the banking sector from where he came from, rest solidly on certain virtues – hardwork, prudence and a relentless pursuit of set objectives. His entrance into the race will signal an ultimate arrival; and a good product will certainly sell itself.

To have a man whose fundamental grasp of economic management has received universal acclaim as the governor of Akwa Ibom will be a height of God’s love for the State.

Election time is fast approaching, and everybody is getting set for the sprint. Akwa Ibom people know that election time is when the voters have the thrill of their lives, the thrill that comes with the ability to say yes to certain politicians and yes to certain programmes. It is time when the sovereignty of the voter is acknowledged by politicians. Is it such a difficult thing to sift the grains from the chaff? Destiny in the hands!

In the true sense, when all of Jesse’s seven sons passed before Samuel and none was God’s choice, Samuel on hearing of David asked Jesse to “send and fetch him…” This was because of David’s intimidating credentials. He is the type of a man his people need when Goliaths appear. Udom Emmanuel has got the charm and the charisma, and the paper and the personality and the pedigree. Although he abhors blowing his trumpets, his pyramid of achievements especially in the private sector , has provided enough air with which his trumpet can be blown.

Therefore, in due season, the sound of the trumpet of he who shall become the man of the moment and the rallying point, shall be heard from the rice fields of Ini to the waters of Ibeno, and across the State. And he shall silent all those knights without armour. After all, he has pitched his tent on the side of the masses going by his antecedents. Emmanuel is a child of necessity.

Udom is a huge blessing to Eket Senatorial district and Akwa Ibom State at large. Davids are rare; they are often hidden treasures that must be guarded jealously. It takes only divine direction to fetch them. Udom Emmanuel is the David of Eket Senatorial District, and must be treated as same. Akwa Ibom is waiting for Jesse to bring him and present for his eventual reign from 2015. That is the voice of the people. The voice of the people is the voice of God. Let Eket bring forth their David, the right man for the ointment, the man with the midas touch. This David will shepherd over four million “sheep” in thirty one local government areas in Nigeria’s 21^st State come 2015. Udom Gabriel Emmanuel!