Oh Okon Uwah, Your Killers Organised Your Burial! By Dan Etukidem

-You can discover what your enemies fears most by
observing the means he uses to frighten you – Eric Hoffer

Which state will the government preside over the killing of a political opponent and turn around to be the key figures in the burial of their victim?
Which state in Nigeria will apparatus of state be used to eliminate perceived political opponents and the perpetrators of the uncommon act will be the first to come on condolence visit, crying more than the bereaved and promising the family that government will do “all it can, or all within it’s power ” to bring to book all those responsible for the murder when actually they killed the victim?
Which state will a political opponent be murdered and a Commissioner for Information will rush to issue a press statement that the victim was not murdered but rather slummed and died at a campaign rally just to distort the truth in a desperate bid to cover the atrocities of a regime of evil?
Which state will the government kill a former deputy speaker and stampede the family to hurry up the burial before the end of the tenure of the administration?
Which state will a Governor call a wife of a deceased murdered by the same regime and intimidate her not to contest the position of state legislator the husband was aspiring to and which office he once held?
Which state will a gang of killers invade their victims burial ground and cry more than the bereaved?
Even a pathological dullard will know the answer – AkwaIbom, the land of uncommon political assassination spiced with state burial, hypocritical tears, ironic sympathy for the bereaved family as they say farewell to their victim of uncommon cruelty and inhuman barbarity.
On Friday, May 22, the world will gather in Ukanafun to bid farewell to a man of integrity, truth and simplicity. No man had the privilege of choosing how and when he would die. If men had such a privilege, Rt HON OkonUwah, former member representing Ukanafun State constituency and former Deputy Speaker of the AkwaIbom State House of Assembly would not have chosen Wednesday March 18th 2015. He would have loved to stay beyond that day and month, at least, to see how the general elections will play out, an election in which he himself was a candidate of the APC for the Ukanafun State Constituency Seat, an office he once occupied.
That OkonUwah was murdered by psychotic hooligans from the PPD on a lower scale of evolution whose hierarchy of needs cannot be higher than that of animals is no longer news. His elimination may no doubt turn out to be a mere dress rehearsal for something more potent and destabilising. Too bad that we have been reduced to the status of a willing cast in
a traveling theatre of torrid absurdities. Who could have believed that this was ever possible in AkwaIbom State? But here we are! Welcome to our moral desert and political jungle where the law has been turned into a limbless ass, where order has gone under, where the criminal is hero, and where crime pays. Frozen for posterity were the look of quizzical horror and tormented bewilderment. What have i done to deserve this, OkonUwah seems to be asking his sadistic executors most of whom he dined and wined together when the going was good in the PDP before the party became known for being a conglomerate of a nest of killers. On the day of his death, the State Governor, Godswill
Akpabio, sorry i keep forgetting the prefix, His Excellency, you may wish to put it before the name too- through the Information Commissioner, MrAniekanUmanah issued a statement saying the Governor regrets the unfortunate incidence and has given express directive that those responsible be arrested and brought to book. This was after the same government had issued a statement that the former lawmaker was not murdered but rather slummed and died at a political rally. This is good news. At least it should be. But on the other hand we must have our heads examined if we are hoping that the perpetrators of this uncommon act of barbarity will ever be brought to justice under any PDP led government at the state. The brutal murder of OkonUwah is most painful and highly provocative to put things diplomatically. All those who met and interacted with him will attest of his being a quiet and reticent fellow, devoted to duty and hard work and given to stoic fortitude and Christian forbearance. He was a man of immense personal generosity, lavishing kindness and affection on all who came his way without ethnic or political bias. He was the model politician and AkwaIbom man- patriotic and detribalised. By all account, OkomUwah was a life of humility, piety and studied self effacement. Even as Deputy Speaker, he was still available, affordable and accessible to people. He was a righteously stubborn politician who will never compromise on issues that concerns his people and Abak 5 in general. Knowing that the PDP has become a cocktail of irregularities and realizing you cannot supplement a doomed venture, he left the ruining PDP for the APC where he emerged as the party’s candidate for his state constituency seat. He knew what his people wanted from the government of the day was not what they are receiving and to ignore the alarming views of his people for long would be unacceptable if not unpardonable. He knew the PDP is a bad precedent for all that is abominable in leadership. He knew that the age of active or passive neutrality had long passed. He knew the era of allowing the PDP play poker with the destiny of the state is over. He knew that under the present regime; the social fabric that binds a people together had since collapsed. His swift defection blew open the rotting innards of the ruling party, exposing the political putrefaction of it’s stalwarts for the world to see. This is how he became a marked man. His executors played their role as scripted by the initiators with crude and barbaric efficiency. The ruling party may boast of killing him but his ghost will walk the landscape and cry to us every night. Is this how barbarously low we have sunk? This is certainly not the transformation the people voted for in 2007. The people voted for geographical and ethnic change that has today proved fatal. Fear stalks the land. There is trepidation everywhere. Uncertainty and a sense of foreboding, of an approaching apocalyptic meltdown grips the citizenry. It is no longer possible to sustain our dear state under it’s current configuration. Political terrorists are using the power of political ascendancy and incumbency to unleash a reign of terror on the rest of us in order to secure and safeguard their temporary and transient advantage. They have broken all the rules of sober and civilized governance. They constitute
the gravest nuisance to the future of our state. OkonUwahs murder should provoke in his people the urge to take their destiny in their hands. Let his death instigate in them the desire to form a formidable alliance that will ensure that some people crash politically with the same gracelessness that has animated their stay in power. When political battles are cast in military terms and symbols much as the outgoing PDP regime have done, it portends danger for both the future of the state and the combatants. So the choice before us is to brace ourselves for the worst or join forces to reclaim our democracy or what is left of it from the hands of charlatans as the darkest period of the night also marks then gradual transition to dawn. The the outgoing regime must realise that having turned the state into a theatre of blood in the name of ambition, they will one day, and much sooner than expected, pay for their crime. This ground has seen too much blood since 2007 and should be allowed to recover and see no more. A situation a ritual of democracy is turned into a rite of blood is not uncommon transformation.
To the people of Ukanafun in particular and Abak 5 in general, Uwahs blood should serve as the inspirational seed towards forcing them to wake up and propel them to elect new leaders that will chart a course that departs from the present. His death should propel them to project that deference, that implacable force and power that would make it unattractive for anyone to marginalize them again. While his killers will surely shed crocodile tears at his funeral, and possibly cry more than the bereaved, many will pray that his soul rest in peace. I entertain no such nonsense. OkonUwah, I know you can hear me- My own prayer is that you do not rest in peace until all those responsible for your death directly or indirectly and their families pay for their crime. This is the much you owe your family. This is what they need and not the uncommon promise of the state government will sponsor your children up to university level and all those trash they have planned to say on your funeral.

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