Abuja — The prosecution team in the murder case against the American football star, O. J. Simpson, built its case around the assumption that Simpson was an incorrigible liar, and the strategy was to let the jury see that aspect of him clearly. During the cross examination, the prosecution team therefore reeled out names of prominent Americans, including the president, who have made uncomplimentary remarks about the football star. The cross examination of the accused by the prosecution team was seemingly peculiar. Simpson, who was accused of murdering his wife, was confronted with such claims as: 'Mr. Simpson, the president of the United States lied against you when he said you did so and so.

'Senator XYZ equally lied against you when he made so and so remark about you.' The answers to the questions were a recurring 'yes' and by the time Simpson answered about 10 of such questions, he had established before the jury the image of a man whom the whole world was maligning. The jury could now determine who was telling the truth. That probably is the strategy that the opponents of Akwa Ibom State governor, Godswill Obot Akpabio, have adopted and it is working out pretty well. The governor has been boxed into a tight corner and all he does now is to defend his actions by publishing press statements almost on daily basis denying one allegation or the other.

The governor, who shares the same middle and surname as my late uncle, Asuquo Obot Akpabio – an accomplished missionary - cuts the image of an assertive leader who does not leave things to chances. One could notice his assertiveness in some of the numerous denials he has made in paid advertorials. I started noticing the bad press against the governor of Akwa Ibom State when Sam Nda-Isaiah, the publisher of LEADERSHIP newspapers, tackled him in his column sometime in January this year over the police abduction of Sam Asowata, the editorial board chairman of Fresh Facts. Asowata was driven from Abuja to Uyo to face his tormentors over a story on alleged housing scandal involving the state government which Fresh Facts was about to publish.

The story was that even Asowata's daughter who had the misfortune of being in her father's office at the time of the police assault, was arrested and detained. What could be derived from the police interrogation was that Akpabio ordered Asowata's torment by the police on fears that he was being used by his predecessor to malign him. The governor, however, distanced himself from the incident. Moments later, Christie Essien-Igbogwe, the lady of songs who suddenly became a big time contractor for Akwa Ibom State government, rented the airwaves and newspaper columns with claims that Akpabio was after her life. She petitioned the president, the National Assembly and the inspector-general of police among others, to protect her from the chief security officer of Akwa Ibom State.

Akpabio personally responded to the message with paid advertorials in several newspapers denying the allegation. At the end of the day the state government would have spent well over two million naira in paid advertorials denying what an ordinary citizen alleged in the news columns of the same papers. Then came the news that the governor and some of his high ranking officials were wanted by the ICPC on allegation of a scandal – probably the alleged housing scandal that Asowata promoted in his publication and ended up with bloodied nose. Again, the governor went on the defensive even as his accusers were reluctant to appear before the commission to argue their case.

Within weeks of that development, the state government, once again, had to buy newspaper space to explain why it doled out 13 Toyota Prado Sports Utility Vehicles (SUV) to legislators who already have too much money from the lean public coffer to spend on themselves. The week after that, newsmen once again had a field day promoting the programmes of the state government. Virtually all the papers carried stories that the state government was building a new governor's lodge at an atrocious cost of N6.4 billion. The story was so hot that news men who missed it were disciplined.

Just as the dust of the scandalous contract was settling, the state government came out with yet another denial. In paid advertorials in several newspapers, the secretary to the state government, Umana Umana, said that those who gave the cost of the contract as N6.4 billion were mischievous. The project, he argued, would cost a paltry N2.5 billion. Ironically, Umana did not blame the press for misquoting the government official who was extensively quoted in the original story.

He however added as an appendage that the 'mischief makers' who gave the cost of the contract as N6.4 billion had lumped together the cost components of other facilities as drainage, access roads, clinic and governor's office extension to give the impression of a bloated contract. Unfortunately, some of the newspapers took pains to give a breakdown of the project which seemingly tally with what Umana himself was implying. In other words, the main lodge is to cost N2.5 billion while the rest of the sum would be spent on support facilities.

Umana's argument, therefore, boils down to hair-splitting. The secretary to the state government has just managed to educate the public on the difference between 12 and one dozen. My opinion is that the clumsy denial of the contract sum emanated from informed outcry by stakeholders who wonder why a state so richly blessed but heavily impoverished could spend a staggering N6.4 billion to provide accommodation for one family. Even with 13 per cent derivation revenue, the level of poverty in Akwa Ibom State is palpable. That probably explains why the house maid syndrome still persists despite spirited efforts by well-meaning indigenes of the state to curb the phenomenon.

Education in the state remains a privilege, not a right. In 2005, someone paid N21, 000 in a public secondary school in the state to enable two needy candidates sit for the West African School Certificate Examination. Their parents could not afford it and the children stood a chance of dropping out of school after the parents had laboured to pay their school fees for six years. Ironically, my son just took a similar exam in Meiran Model College, Lagos State, at the expense of the Lagos State government which does not even charge a dime in tuition fees. Lagos State government may be earning N10 billion monthly in internally generated revenue which Akwa Ibom does not, however, the state has a population about five times the size of Akwa Ibom State. Given the wide population differential, the per capita income of Akwa Ibom State may be very close to that of Lagos which sponsors a student population about three times that of Akwa Ibom through free education.

Governments of the Eastern states had all along regarded education as the business of parents. In my days in primary school, my father had to cough out six pounds yearly for each child's school fees. The year he could not raise that amount, all of us had to stay at home. On the contrary, free education has always been the corner stone of government policy in Western Nigeria. That explains the faster pace of development in that part of the country. The Akwa Ibom State government and many of its counterparts in the east are still behaving like the government of Eastern Nigeria under the late Michael Iheonukara Okpara. Education remains a privilege.

Akwa Ibom State government is sailing perilously close to the position that the federal government of Nigeria found itself in the dying days of the Abacha regime. It is for obvious reasons being assailed from all angles by aggrieved stakeholders who are labouring to make it look like a pariah. A government under such siege mentality would definitely have little time for the act of governance as it battles to fend off aggrieved stakeholders often mistaken for enemies. Siege mentality is the only explanation for the barrage of clumsy advertorials that the state government has churned out in recent months denying one thing or the other.

What could be deciphered from the spate of denials is that either the governor has skeletons in his cupboard or he does not understand the psychology of the average Akwa Ibom indigene. The state indigenes are first class petition writers. Any governor who ignores this fact would spend all his resources chasing shadows. But then, a governor who has skeletons in his cupboard would be stupid to ignore those petitions because they are almost always well crafted.

I do not know where Akpabio belongs here. The only thing I know is that he is in a tight corner and has been compelled to be killing flies with a sledge hammer. I do not see any wisdom in the governor personally signing the reaction to the petition by Chritie Essien-Igbogwe and placing the advertorial at the expense of the tax payer. Again, there is no wisdom in a state that is light years behind its Millennium Development Goal (MDG) building a governor's lodge with N6.4 billion, no matter how cleverly the cost of the project is itemised.