PDP, NDOMA-EGBA AND THE BURDEN OF HISTORY

Victor Ndoma-Egba, former Senate leader, is man of purpose and achievement, writes Dickson Arikpo

Iwas bothered when I read the article with the above title by one Samson Egbe in THISDAY of Thursday, September 24, 2015 and the Sun of September 29, 2015. I was bothered because the article which was clearly the voice of Jacob and the hand of Esau, confirmed a nightmarish legacy of our recent politics of lies and deceit in Cross River State.

I am from Obubra in Cross River Central Senatorial District, the hotbed of the current political cross currents in the state. I am politically active and also a legal practitioner in the law firm of Ndoma-Egba, Ebri & Co, founded in 1987 by Senator Victor NdomaEgba. My reply to Samson Egbe’s article will be essentially on his claim that “Those of us who are privy to the minutest details of how the Party plucked him (Ndoma-Egba) from the backwaters of an uneventful legal practice and transformed him to a star in the national stage are miffed by his ceaseless campaign of calumny against the Party.’’

This is either the height of self-denial of Senator Ndoma-Egba’s antecedents, sheer ignorance of his person or just mischief. I did not meet Senator Ndoma-Egba in Chambers as he had already left for the Senate when I joined his law firm. However I have had access to all his records, both public and private, and the records of his professional practice, one of the busiest in this part of the world.

He was barely 30 years old and eight years at the Bar when he established the firm which has since produced Attorneys General for Cross River State, Senior Advocates of Nigeria, Judges of the Federal and State High Courts, amongst many others.

The son of the respected Justice E.T Ndoma-Egba whose mother Regina Nentui was the first woman County Council (now Local Government Council) chairman in the defunct Eastern Region, he has since gone through by dint of hard work, to become the fourth Senior Advocate of Nigeria from Cross River State, keeping the eminent company of the famous Dr. Okoi Arikpo, Chief Effiom Ekong and Kanu Agabi, the first Nigerian ever, and so far the only one to be conferred with the rank outside legal practice or academics, as he was got the rank while in the Senate.

He became a member of the Body of Benchers and the National Executive Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association long before he went to the Senate. He served an unprecedented three terms as Chairman, Calabar branch of the NBA and three unprecedented terms as President of Calabar Chamber of Commerce. It was during his tenure as NBA Chairman that the bar got the privilege to make inputs to the appoint- ment of judges in the state, redundant and corrupt judges were weeded out of the system and the bar then confronted the then military administrator of the state over mal-administration. He was re-deployed to another state with the explanation by the then Chief of General Staff that misapplication of funds was not misappropriation. It was during his tenure that the campaign for a Division of the Court of Appeal in Calabar started. When he was in practice his cases littered the law reports and his law firm was the firm of choice for Law School students for attachment and young lawyers.

He was appointed Chairman, Governing Board of Government Secondary School Ikom by Dr. Clement Isong, then Governor of old Cross River State, at the age of 23, was appointed to a federal board by President Shehu Shagari at 24 and became commissioner at the age of 27 in the old Cross River during President Buhari’s first outing as military head of state. There were only 19 states in the federation then.

Lies, no matter how often repeated, cannot become truth and self-denial to the obvious, to facts that are verifiable especially in this age of the internet, is to push ourselves from petty to ridiculous.

Apart from this legal practice, NdomaEgba set up businesses which in spite of the inclement business environment have survived. He founded Emostrade Ltd, an engineering company in 1987 and it has survived till date offering employment to many Cross Riverians. It is also on record that he established the first Community Bank outside Calabar in 1993 and it is today CSD Micro Finance Bank, the only Micro Finance Bank in Central Senatorial District of the state till date.

It is also public knowledge that his well-acknowledged scholarship scheme was instituted in 1981 and has survived till date. He also has a subsidised public transportation scheme amongst many other social responsibility programme.

For the likes of Samson Egbe, in this age of information technology, very few facts can be manufactured, more so about one who has been in the public eye, without any hint of malfeasance or scandal, virtually all his life. He is a man who clearly charted his course and with unwavering Roman Catholic faith, single-minded determination, integrity and humility. He has been served by his humility, his incredible capacity for friendships, poignant sense of humour, focus, insight, vision and total lack of pettiness and intolerance for frivolity.

Rather than his futile attempt to diminish his person, achievements and what he represents, my advise to Samson Egbe and his like is emulate him.