Samuel Duncan
No one would righteously claim and conscientiously substantiate that Oro never played key role in the struggle for the creation of AKS.. The fact that an Oro Patriot, Late IGP, Ikpoto Sir Etim Inyang was a close ally of the then military president, having served him creditably and commendably well as IGP can effortlessly convince any incarnate of Thomas that Babangida couldn’t have forgotten in such hurry, the very friend he used to come to see in Enwang, Mbo LGA when it was time to create a state that Sir Inyang would belong.. Besides that, if the story of the struggle for state creation were to be told, Oro still has authorities who would do justice to that.
Oro after the state creation has very well been the very area whose natural endowment has sustained AKS and that fact can never be debated by anybody or group of persons known to history and humanity.. Oro has been very supportive of other tribes in AKS, very supportive of state policies, programmes, projects, dreams, and visions and above all absolutely supportive of various governments in AKS over the years.
Oro has been very good neighbour to the sister tribes of Annang and Ibibio in the state.. These and many other good things, she has done in good faith and as a people hoped, thier friendly dispositions towards other tribes within the state would be reciprocated in similar manner.
The Oro people has however sadly or rather unfortunately realised to their chagrin that instead of being appreciated, they get hated, cheated, deprived, oppressed and marginalised by the same people they have lived to love and cherish as brothers.
The current administration of Deacon Udom Emmanuel has come to crown Oro’s exclusion, deprivation, oppression and marginalisation.. His attitude and disposition to the many and sustained cries of the Oro people on his grand scheme to ultimately castrate Oro politically has been a matter of serious concern to the discerning Oro natives.. One therefore would never cease to wonder if at all Deacon Emmanuel is not on a political vendetta or a revenge mission of whichever name?
Deacon Udom’s administration came to reduce Oro from three commissionership slots to miserable two, it completely erased Oro’s face and voice from the SWC of the PDP, no mention can be made of Oro (the third largest ethnic nation in AKS) in the first five on AKS protocol list, in the parliament, Oro cannot for any reason be allowed to occupy the first seat under Deacon Udom’s watch, appointment as chairmen of grade A boards, agencies and commissions under Deacon Udom can never come to Oro even as he can never appointment any Oro person as a full time chairman of even the lowest rated board in AKS.
I hear my fellow Oro youths who have however pathetically sworn to live as slaves chorus the shameful claim that Deacon Udom has appointed several SAs from Oron, but one would wonder how vitiated and sterile such thinking could be given the obvious fact that Oro’s SAs are rated below their counterparts from Ibibio and Annang – those who know the names can roll them out for our hypnotised and sterilised young people to compare notes.
Who among the Oro SAs can boast of good access to his boss, boast of regular 250k every month, proudly beat his chest he belongs to a government in power, boast of a decent office befitting an SA to a Nigerian governor etc.?.. How many of them have official cars as officers of government at that level, how many who have not been given official vehicles are even allowed to use official plate numbers in their personal vehicles, how many can effortlessly donate 10k to the youth fellowships in their churches etc.?
What use then are all these empty boasts of answering SA to serve if they are no better than those without such portfolios in government?..
The Deacon Udom’s neglect of Oro expands as one moves forward in attempt to try to analyse its extent.
Oro is purported to host the over-hyped deep seaport and industrial city but, the access highway to lead and evacuate traffic into and out of the port belongs in Ibeno; they claim they want to build deep seaport in Ibaka but, Our Deacon has perfected arrangements for building an International Jetty with accompanying ‘Industrial Park’ in Ikot Abasi yet, no PDP stakeholder in Oro has hired buses and compelled stooges to appear in the respected Oro attire for a gathering in an event centre to seek clarification form their Deacon on the difference between a jetty and a seaport, and the difference between an industrial city and an industrial park and equally to know which of the two will first be inaugurated.
The young Oro people in PDP celebrated the exit of their elders from PDP and claimed in sheer ignorance that they are loved by the likes of GOA and Deacon Emmanuel.
I would love to know if their claim have been proven.. Why has Our Deacon chosen Aniefiok Iwa Udofia to Mr. Duncan Uweh if, our young people’s claim of belonging to the system is anything to be taken seriously?.. Deacon Emmanuel out of too many loud cries, reluctantly promised to dualise Oron-Ibaka road.. One needs to take a tour of the Eket-Etinan road, Eket-Ibeno road, and the road to Awa constructed by Our Deacon and come back to place those ones besides the one he says he’s doing to Oron from Nsit Atai to know if actually the desire to do the Oron road came from his heart or his lips.. Which contractors handled the ones outside Oro and the one in Oro?..
The dakkada ambassadors in Oro should do well to visit the gully site opposite Access Bank in Oron, the culvert done close to Okobo police station and the reluctantly done intervention jobs done in Oro and compare their quality with the ones done outside Oro.. Will Our Deacon commission the Oron-Enwang-Ibaka road he promised to dualise on May 29, 2017 along with other solidly constructed roads he has done in other areas of the state?
Why is it very difficult for Our Deacon to at least appoint another Permanent Secretary from Mbo to replace the one that retired long ago?.. Who is the Permanent Secretary from Okobo?.. How many PSs does Akwa Ibom have?.. Why has it been very painful for Our Deacon to at least give one each out of the many to the five LGAs in Oro?
Has there been a time the so called political leaders in Oro gather together to assess how Oro is fairing in this government they have sworn to so slavishly serve?.. Have they taken stock of the seeming unending injustices of this gang up called government?
These indeed, are injustices too many!!!
I believe and I’ll continue to profess this – Oro is going through a phase God is using to test the Ibibios and the Annangs and as rightly pointed to by Omen Bassey, this phase shall pass..
Anyone in AKS whose sense of history still works will remember that Oro was the first to be favoured with power, positions, fame and even money.
The difference between Oro and our bad neighbours lies in the fact that we protected and defended them with all God blessed us with, but theirs is a story of a people who misuse opportunities..
We are the first to produce IG in AKS, his positive prints can be found in other parts of this state but, when Ibibio (Ikot Abasi) produced Rear Admiral Sylvester Usoro Umosen (now retired), he rather than push Ibaka FOB which has been in existence for about three decades, decided to rob Oro to establish Naval headquarters in their village Ikpa Ibekwe clan in Ikot Abasi; Oro had a Top Rate political shaker and mover of a time, Late Distinguished Senator Victor Akan whose influence was overwhelming, who equally would have done everything to Oro’s advantage if he were selfish but, he rather facilitated the emergence of Ibibio’s first elected governor from the same place with the incumbent governor who has sworn to decimate Oro with a transient but ephemeral advantage of the now; the same Senator Akan facilitated the siting of ALSCON in Ikot Abasi when he had but also a transient advantage like Rear Admiral Sylvester Usoro Umosen who chose to use his to Oro’s disadvantage; again, the same Lion (Senator Akan) in Oro’s characteristic spirit of brotherliness and selfless love, facilitated the emergence if Annang’s first elected governor ever when he was both in position and power (again, a transient phase of life) but, when Akpabio came, he perfected the grand but satanic plot to shut out Oro started by his predecessor by choosing to close down the only federal road linking Oro on the idiotic excuse that there was no other site for the airport than to close Oro in.
Akpabio did not stop there, he with the full support of the entire Annang race, inflicted an ‘eternal injury’ on the ‘heart’ of the Oro people dead, alive and yet to be born by robbing the very people who for a record second time, made it possible for Annang to produce an elected governor by cheating Oro out of the AKS governorship slot in 2015.
Akpabio again, so wickedly refused to accord Oro her God endowed status of being ‘Sumptuously Oil Bearing and Oil Producing’ even after the federal parliament affirmed so and the Commander-In-Chief of the Federal Republic of Nigeria then, had accented to it – a hatred, an oppression, marginalisation, deprivation and cheat taken beyond human limits.
If Akpabio could be forgiven for that, what can any human say about a Deacon in the church where Christ superintends – are these peoples’ consciences alive?
If small Eastern Obolo could be receiving for a very long time before now a whooping N250,000,000.00 per annum as royalty from Mobil, how much would Oro be entitled to claim if ‘Our Oppressors’ allowed us access to Our God given wealth?.. The duo of Ibibio and Annang came behind to pay Oro back in bad coin after Oro had played the good brother with her earlier advantages.
Eket has been another set of sadists and ungrateful lots.. Oro had a hand in the emergence of Esuene as military administrator of that time but, when he came on the saddle, he again, used that transient position to annex Oro’s land/territory and worse still robbed Oro of the opportunity to host Mobil.
Our worst enemies today may not directly be the ‘bad neighbours and heartless oppressors’ we’ve always had but, those ‘willing traitors’ that are now found to outnumber those who carry and portray the Oro spirit in whatever circumstance they find themselves.
Our forebears never lived for the now, they were not greedy, brittle and subservient.. They would never betray the unborn generation neither were they sluggards, n’er-do-wells.
They projected their best and did not flaunt imbeciles.. They were no cowards, praise singers, bootlickers, second fiddles, dumbs, zombies, illiterates, and school dropouts like the many who flood our political terrain today.. Isn’t it miserable that today, some so called leaders in the politics of our areas carry purchased FSLCs?.
It was the legendary Nobel Laureate, literary icon, and top class playwright and poet, Professor Akinwande Oluwole Babatunde Soyinka who said and I quote “The man dies in him, who keeps silent in the face of tyranny”.. Oh! How low, lies the land of brave and courageous warriors whose forebears secured a proud record of resisting slavery and has no history of selling her own to the white slave masters though the barbaric trade took place around her territory!.
Is there no man of courage in the likes of Otu Toyo, Comr. Okon Osung, Dr. Efiong Edunam Edunam, HE (Dr.) Etim Uyeh, HE Etim Okpoyo, Hon. Robinson Uwak, etc. left in PDP who can tell Deacon Udom the truth in times as now?.
We will never forgive these First Class Brains: HE (Dr.) Etim Uyeh, HE Otu Toyo, Dr. Effiong Edunam Edunam, Hon. (Prince) Chris Abasieyo, and the likes, if they take to the grave the excellent records of events (history) of our rough rides with our unfriendly neighbours in the political, socioeconomic and other spheres of life..
Availing us of such useful records shall not amount to keeping accounts of wrongs by our supposed neighbours but, would be an excellent instrument for the correction of the many wrongs (inhuman treatments) meted on Oro by the very peoples Oro loved with all her heart.
THIS SHALL SURELY PASS AWAY!
#OROSHALLRISE
