By Nduka Uzuakpundu
A pointer to what may transpire in the race for the control of Akwa Ibom State politics found an interesting for the control of Akwa Ibom State politics, come 2019, has found an interesting expression, in what is now popularly referred to by pundits and commentators in Uyo, the capital, as “stadium politics.” A stadium, in a layman’s definition could be a modern form of amphitheatre, where football is played as a form of entertainment watched by a crowd of people called spectators.
In most instances, today, spectators pay to watch footballers – especially professionals – exhibit their skills on how well to kick or head the leather sphere chiefly to score what matters in the sport: goal(s) – and to the glee the supporters of the scoring side. In Roman times, there were mainly amphitheatres where gladiators and wrestlers, and other men of valour usually tested their strengths.
Then, as in the era of Emperor Augustus Caesar, for instance, the game of football had not been invented, so to speak, still less the art of kicking or heading the leather or plastic sphere about, as if an aerial battle, by two competing sides of eleven each, on an expansive, well manicured artificial or real lush green rectangular space divided into two equal halves. It is widely agreed that it’s in a football stadium that a certain kind of politics is played: winning the hearts of the spectators.
Therefore, a player who dribbles and scores – unassisted – a la Diego Maradona or legendary Pele of Brazil or Nigeria’s Segun ‘Mathematical’ Odegbemi – would be applauded by almost everyone, including the real sportsmen and women who are for the opposing team. A goalkeeper, like Joseph Dosu, who stops a penalty kick from being converted into a goal in a very keenly contested Olympic final, stands a good chance to be recognized as either the ‘Man of the Match’ or ‘Most Valued Player’!
But as opposed to what obtained in Roman times, a stadium could be a subject or scene of intense politics. While it, naturally, conjures a scene of strategic distribution of the leather sphere, friendly tackles – and occasionally, rough or hostile tackles that may attract either a yellow or red card from the centre referee, the idea of a stadium is about friendship in sports. It’s when any of the rules of the game played, therein, is breached that some form of ‘politics’ – depending on who’s crossed, in most instances – is read into the decision of the referee.
The classic case of the stadium in the Uyo – the Godswill Akpabio International Stadium (GAIS) – is a good instance of the All Progressives Congress (APC) desirous of scoring presidential and governorship goals in next year’s general elections. It was raw politics when a request by the APC to use the GAIS was met with an initial outright “No” by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) administration there. As to why Governor Udom Emmanuel was, at first, reluctant to nod at the APC request, the truth is that it was politics – PDP versus APC – well at play.
That initial refusal was later converted to what could be defined as an own goal in favour of the APC: that President Muhammadu Buhari could start his campaign for the 2019 general election in GAIS. Udom Emmanual and his associates in the PDP in the Akwa Ibom State have demonstrated an initial bad taste, which was read by most voters in the state as unpopular: GAIS is, yes, a state property with an eponymous tag, but it was an unnecessary hostile disposition towards Buhari, who was, whichever way you look at it, was an august visitor. For Udom Emmanuel that was a move that has drawn from most voters in the state, a well-deserved yellow card. That initial “No” was uncalled for; an instant nod would have earned the PDP public respect – not one that was grudgingly given as an afterthought.
No one is impressed by the PDP’s self-adulation that the grudging nod was a show of “mature leadership”. The voters in Akwa Ibom State know very well that Udom Emmanuel – an index of what obtains in the PDP at the national level – is a weak leader. The PDP’s reluctant nod that Buhari was free to use the GAIS did not – and has not – helped the fact that the PDP felt visibly threatened that Buhari – the globally-acclaimed crusader against near-bottomless corruption, for which the PDP ought to be crowned with a Nobel Prize – assuming there’s such a reward for maladministration – would take the sheen off it by, as it did turn out, by, literally, scoring about five unreplied goals. All that was encapsulated in the shift – in addition to ongoing defections by members of the PDP – to the APC. The sight of Buhari, in amidst a swarming crowd at GAIS, did all the magic, if you care. It was, again, an afterthought that betrayed the depth of the confusion and dislocation within the PDP. As an own goal it’s quite reflective what surely might fall, come 2019: a sweeping vote for the APC by voters in the state.
Thus, the stadium politics was an error of judgment. It was and pressing politics too far. Akwa Ibom is not a state that comprised solely of PDP followers. APC tax-paying members, too, are a very visible lot there, which was well attested to in the crowd that graced the Buhari-led rally at GAIS. It was a clear registration of Udom Emmanuel’s weak leadership and immaturity – that the PDP in Akwa Ibom State and at the national level did not see well in advance, the strategic and economic importance of a planned, spectator-pulling, ‘away match’ by the APC’s trophy-winning team captained by fleet-footed, master dribbler and scorer of goals called Buhari.
Otherwise, the PDP should have been the first to announce, about a month before the arrival of the visiting APC team, that the good people of Akwa Ibom State would gladly welcome them and they were free to use the GAIS as their practice pitch. Right from when that announcement of a friendly disposition to the expected APC team, truth is that all the hotels – the very expensive, not quite expensive, second-rate and third-class ones would have been fully booked by politicians and businessmen and women, and tourist who were interested in not only in the politics of the states, but also exploring the possibility of investing in the state’s economy.
But, so late was the GAIS gate opened to the APC that some ninety-five percent of the income that hoteliers, restauranteurs, petty food hawkers and transporters, amongst others, would have made – and the attendant tax revenue for the state government – were, irretrievably, lost. Put bluntly, the directionless and inept PDP leadership squandered a huge part of the blessing freely given by Buhari’s choice of GAIS to launch his presidential campaign. That was akin to the PDP’s failure to covert a spot-kick to a goal. One says nothing of the home advantage! All that was, in its mildest form, an unsurprising appalling performance by a party that wishes that Nigerians, whom, for nearly two decades, it impoverished, should, once again, hand over the affairs of the country to it in 2019.
And like most tax-payers and voters, who are genuinely soured against the Udom Emmanuel administration, for having run down Akwa Ibom State, hoteliers, transporters, restauranteurs, caterers, students and market men and women, who graced the Buhari-led rally at GAIS, their choice come the 2019 presidential race is certain: the All Progressive Congress. That, in itself, has triggered some deep unease amongst the PDP supporters in the state and at the national level that they’ll suffer an unusual humiliation wherever they are likely to encounters the APC.
