Since he came to power in May 2007, as governor, Chief Akpabio has been on war path with all sorts of enemies, beginning with the man he succeeded whom he tried to cut down to a smaller size in the first week of ascending to power.

Thereafter, it has been a galore of enemies here and there. He has not only fallen out with close political associates who played one positive role or another toward his emergence as a political figure and as a gubernatorial candidate and his subsequent election.

Taking an inventory of these "enemies" will delay us much here in such a limited space. What have intrigued me lately are the governor’s reaction to yet a new set of "enemies", this time anonymous petition writers.

Akpabio’s accusers are alleged to have written to the Independent Corrupt Practices and Other Offences Commission (ICPC) listing a series of expenditures which the petitioners described as a "spending spree."

These include the purchase of luxury cars amounting to over N1 billion, supplied to the state by Chinto Technologies Limited, a company alleged to be owned by Akpabio’s wife, Ekaette.

These vehicles were distributed as gifts to legislators (state and national.), traditional rulers and government officials. The speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Ignatius Kelvin Edet, for example, received seven of the new cars to add to the six he already inherited from the previous government.

The paramount rulers, who also already possessed cars from the immediate past government, received additional cars from Akpabio. Statements later issued by state officials, including the Commissioner for Information, Mr. Census Ekpu, and Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Usoro Usoro, admitted that such cars were indeed purchased to facilitate official work and that due process was followed.

We are still awaiting further investigation by the ICPC on who truly owns Chinto Technologies Limited as a report in The Nation newspaper Sunday April 13, 2008 indicated that it wrote to CAC for such details, but the people of Akwa Ibom State must ask if luxury cars are a priority in a state where many are deprived of so many social amenities and it is even worse that the recipients of the automobiles already owned barely used ones. Was this gesture a bribe or a way of building up a political base?

More sensational is the allegation that Governor Akpabio purchased land worth N400 million and has developed a portion of it already. In a prior news story a few months ago, Mr. Usoro was quoted as saying that Akpabio was already a rich man before he became governor and that the development projects of his personal estate should not be a surprise to observers.

Again, this must await detailed investigations and the ICPC has called on petitioners to bring forward their evidence, even though the agency claimed to have received already some vouchers and was speaking to top state officials for clarifications.

Other allegations made by Akpabio’s accusers, such as his cash gifts to the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) and to an Ibibio cultural organization can wait for now. What has raised eyebrows of many watchers of the state has been the verbal assault on ICPC by Governor Akpabio’s Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Usoro Usoro. In a naïve and crude reaction, Akpabio’s press chief, in an article published in The Nation of 15th April 2008, lashed out at the ICPC as being manipulated by fiction writers. On the whole, he is suggesting that the agency has degenerated to a political tool. Cleverly, he evaded the more serious allegations about Akpabio’s real estate and the actual identity of the vehicle-vending contractor. Rather, like his colleague, Mr. Ekpu (the Information Commissioner), he merely gave the lame excuse that the cars supplied were needed to facilitate official work. A couple of days later, the Government of Akwa Ibom State issued a statement signed by Mr. Ekpu, dissociating itself from Mr. Usoro’s opinion, which the government said was strictly personal. We can now see how an innocuous government agency has suddenly become an enemy for doing its work.

What has emerged from the foregoing is, among others, that a lot is amiss in Akpabio’s government. It is more serious than mere dislocation in the information machinery of the government. A government is not just about budgets and development plans. There must be some vision, a political philosophy, management skills and political savvy. Before touching on how there has been a dearth of all these in Akpabio’s Akwa Ibom, one must note that the aides he employed to assist him in information management have woefully failed him. His chief press secretary, clearly garrulous, has not demonstrated any skills beyond name-calling and abuse of "enemies," including respectable dignitaries. There is hardly any element of logic or argument in whatever he dabbles into.

In the kind of presidential democracy we are running, presidential and gubernatorial aides ought to exhibit modern techniques of building, not destroying friendships of the various publics with which the president or governor interacts. President Yar’Adua’s aides have not done badly in this regard and many of our governors have not been too exposed to controversy, hostilities and press warfare as we have witnessed in Akwa Ibom, especially in the physical assault of journalists and news vendors. It all begins, of course, and ends with the man on top. This is where Governor Akapbio has a lot of homework to do.

He must open up dialogue with the many so-called enemies he has made, wittingly and otherwise. The allocation from the federal purse is not exclusively for the government and its cronies. It is for the state in general. Buying political support from the elite, through gifts of cars and cash is like building on sand.

A more enduring foundation is to look far beyond and see how development-oriented projects can generate jobs, increase food production, send children to school, provide healthcare and, in general, security in the lives of individuals and communities. Such a vision will need consultations with even "enemies."

Why, for example has Governor Akpabio shunned Dr. Udom Bob Ekarika? The latter was a former commissioner in Victor Attah’s government (like Akpabio) as well as Attah’s son-in-law. More relevant, it was with Ekarika that Akpabio hotly contested for PDP’s nomination. In a paid advertisement in The Punch of 18th April, 2008, Dr. Ekarika addressed an open letter to Governor Akpabio advising the latter to shelve the idea of building a grandiose N6.8 billion Government House complex. Why Dr. Ekarika resorted to a newspaper, according to the advert, was because Akpabio refused to grant him audience in spite of repeated efforts.

This behaviour on the part of the governor smacks of backward and timid political culture. Meted out to a fellow party man, how would the governor then react to AC’s flag bearer, Mr. Charles Iniama and non-PDP politicians if they approached him on any matter concerning the state? Is he only governor to a faction of the PDP, that is, to only those who sing his praises?