Senator Godswill Akpabio’s emergence as the President of the Senate and Chairman of the 10th National Assembly on Tuesday, June 13, this year, has distinguished him as a political juggernaut to be revered in the current political dispensation.
If it were in the days of the late Senator Arthur Nzeribe (may his soul rest in peace), Akpabio would have slugged it out with him on who would bear the sobriquet, “Maverick Politician,” given the calculated steps he has taken in the last five years that earned him his current position as Nigeria’s number three citizen.
Having been defeated in the 2019 National Assembly elections, which dashed his hopes of returning to the Senate, the former Senate Minority Leader might have watched the inauguration of the 9th National Assembly either from the gallery or his television set.
A former governor of Akwa Ibom State, Akpabio had earned the trust of his people and traversed the length and breadth of the Land of Promise like a colossus. He called the shots and got “vuvuzelling” applause from his people in response. But his defection to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2018, from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which brought him to the political limelight, angered his people and they made sure that he lost his bid to return to the Senate in 2019.
The defeat was Akpabio’s first electoral loss since he ventured into politics. He had had it amply rosy since 2002 when then governor of his state, Obong Victor Atta, appointed him as Commissioner for Petroleum and Natural Resources. He joined Atta’s cabinet as a political neophyte. Before the appointment, he was working in the private sector as the Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer of EMIS Telecoms Limited, a wireless telecommunications company in Lagos. Between 2002 and 2006, he served as commissioner in three key ministries in the state — Petroleum and Natural Resources, Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs, and Lands and Housing. In 2007, he joined the race for the governorship in the state and trounced 57 other aspirants to emerge as PDP candidate. He won the general poll and went ahead to win re-election in 2011.
Within the eight years, he governed the state, Akpabio delivered numerous life-changing projects that endeared him to the people of the state and also earned him various awards and recognitions both locally and internationally. The ovation was so high that Akpabio branded himself as the “Uncommon Governor.” Riding on his achievements, he didn’t find it difficult to impose a successor on the people in the person of former governor Udom Emmanuel when it was time for him to quit as governor, while he headed for the Senate.
At the Senate, his star still shone brightly as he clinched the position of Minority Leader, which by Senate rule, is reserved for a ranking opposition senator, and he was not one. As his political profile was rising, so was his support base in the state and at the national level. He was one of the power brokers in the PDP.
Despite this, Akpabio chose to dump the party. He was officially welcomed into APC on August 9, 2018, at the Ikot Ekpene Township Stadium.
His defection dominated political discourse for weeks because it was least expected. No fewer than 30 APC senators and members of the National Working Committee (NWC) of the party were on hand to receive Akpabio into their fold.
Then Senate Majority Leader, Ahmed Lawan, who attended the defection rally, remarked that, “this defection surpasses all other defections.” To Akpabio himself, he was “an uncommon defector.”
But in toeing the path, he was well aware that the PDP has governed his state since 1999 and had a well-entrenched structure, with 329 councillors, 31 local council chairmen, 21 House of Assembly members, nine out of the 13 members in both chambers of the National Assembly, and over 500 appointees across the state. Although some of his loyalists went with him to the APC, the body and soul of PDP in the state were still intact. But he felt he could still weather the storm.
He brushed off every warning from his kinsmen, who even organised protest rallies just to get him to retrace his steps. He would rather boast that he could win the election on the platform of any political party in the state. With an undimmed political journey for 20 years then, he felt no force in and out of Akwa Ibom was strong enough to alter the equation and spoke with divine certainty.
While at a funeral ceremony in Aguobu-Owa, Ezeagu Local Council of Enugu State, on August 21, he declared that APC’s takeover of Akwa Ibom in 2019 would be as total as the 1940 invasion of Poland by the German dictator, Adolf Hitler.
His words: “Recently, I had an occasion in Akwa Ibom State and this is what happened: I went just to make a floor declaration; others do it in the social media; others just sit in their offices; some do it by text messages that they have changed platform, what we call party. But on my own, I just decided to do it in an uncommon way because they call me an uncommon transformer. It was watched in 59 countries and somebody asked what happened there, and I said just how it happened in Poland.
“When they asked Hitler’s minister of information how was the war in Poland? He said Warsaw saw war and war saw Warsaw. I will say that in the Ikot Ekpene arena when I stepped out, this is my first function after that, Warsaw saw war, and war saw Warsaw. We can’t talk politics in the church, but in 2019 Warsaw shall see war and war shall see Warsaw. The return will be victory.”
On another occasion, he further declared, “With my exit, this is the end of PDP in Niger Delta.”
He was wrong as the result of the elections proved. The people simply stuck with PDP and the lawyer-turned-politician lost in eight of the 10 local government areas of his senatorial district, garnering 83,158 votes to 118,215 votes scored by the candidate of PDP, Dr. Chris Ekpenyong, who was declared the winner.
Overall, PDP cleared all the 13 NASS seats in Akwa Ibom, won 20 of the 21 House of Assembly seats in the state, and retained the governorship of the state. Akpabio’s hopes that his defection would bolster the fortunes of APC in the South South region were also dashed as five of the six states in the zone remained under the firm control of PDP, which was the status quo before the election.
Soon enough, the number of Akpabio’s loyalists thinned down, as some of them returned to the PDP. But the former governor remained unperturbed.
“I do not have any regret joining APC, not a single regret. If I was to take a decision today, I will still go to APC. People don’t understand that life is full of ups and downs. Life is not a straight line. If it is a straight line, it means you are dead. I can’t go back to PDP. Why are you people listening to the rumour? Why will I go back to PDP when I am already getting entrenched in APC? I am excited that the president won the election all over the country,” he declared.
His tenacity paid off as then president Muhammadu Buhari appointed him as the Minister of Niger Delta Affairs. Expectedly, he seized that opportunity to expand his political network and register some “uncommon transformations” that pleased his people and other Nigerians.
One such was the completion of the 13-floor Headquarters of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, which Buhari commissioned in March 2021, 25 years after commencement. Before the project came on stream, the commission was reportedly paying a yearly rent of N300 million for its office.
In his quest to serve the country in a higher office, he resigned in May 2022 in compliance with Buhari’s directive to all his appointees seeking elective posts in the 2023 general election to do so.
Akpabio’s dream was to succeed Buhari as president. So, he was among the 23 APC presidential aspirants that paid N100 million each to obtain the expression of interest and nomination forms of the party. But he was the first to step down from the race at the June 7, 2022, National Convention of the party.
“I will join the next president to turn the boys in Nigeria into men,” he said with a note of certainty. “I doff my hat and I urge you that as I withdraw now, vote for Asiwaju Ahmed Tinubu.”
After he set the ball rolling, many other aspirants followed suit. Tinubu eventually won the primary election with 1,271 votes, beating 13 other aspirants.
Then a series of political abracadabra ensued, which resulted in the annulment of the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial Primary Election earlier won by DIG Udom Ekpoudom (rtd) over alleged irregularities by the party. On June 10, 2022, Akpabio won the “rescheduled primary.” Ekpoudom felt robbed and approached the court to seek redress. However, on January 20, this year, the Supreme Court affirmed Akpabio as the validly nominated candidate of the party.
With the case laid to rest, Akpabio focused his energy on the senatorial campaign. He won back the love of his people and went ahead to win the election, scoring 115,401 votes to beat his closest rival, Emmanuel Enoidem, of the PDP who scored 69,838 votes.
With victory in his pocket, Akpabio set his eyes on becoming the next President of the Senate. Having supported Tinubu in the presidential race, he began to pull all the necessary strings that would aid his emergence. That he got the backing of the Presidency and the NWC of the party, and eventually won it, beating the former governor of Zamfara State, Abdulaziz Yari, who was believed to have been sponsored by some entrenched forces in the Nigerian system, with 63 votes to 46 votes, was not surprising to many observers who understood that his victory was a product of his political sagacity counting from the time he defected to the APC.
Speaking shortly after his election as President of the Senate, Akpabio promised that the 10th Senate would work to renew the hope of Nigerians via people-oriented legislation.
“We are here to do our national duties. This Senate is about Nigeria and Nigerians, so long as the policies that come to this chamber are about empowering Nigerians, we shall dwell and deliberate on them,” he assured.
Nigerians are watching to see the extent he would keep to his words. But one clear thing is that how well he acquits himself on his current national assignment would bear heavily on his political future. However, his successes so far place him as a maverick politician in his mould.
