Fair Weather Friends Abandon Nsima Ekere
The saying that the strongest man is he who walks most alone might apply to much of life but certainly not in politics. Just ask Obong Nsima Udo Ekere. The former Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC) is feeling anything but strong these days. His club of close friends and political associates whom he relied on and trusted to bail him out of tough situations has begun filing for the exit door, leaving the popular politician distraught.
We gathered that his unceremoniousº defeat at the Akwa Ibom governorship polls despite all his hue and cry about unseating the incumbent led quite a few of his inner sanctum to pack their bags in search of winning trains to jump aboard. It was perceived in some quarters that Ekere couldn’t translate his success in bureaucracy and the boardroom into comparable conquests on the political terrain, especially given the huge amount of resources, material and human, available to him as NDDC boss.
The recent controversies that trailed Ekere didn’t help his cause as some of his lifelong allies began to grow lukewarm in their devotion. Just before the governorship elections, a warrant of arrest against Ekere for a 2.4 billion fraud case was brought to light, subsequent to which the Federal High Court in Abuja disqualified him from contesting. Against all odds, he went ahead to participate but was soundly trounced by the incumbent Udom Emmanuel.
Since then, winter has come for Ekere. He is no longer the hot commodity he was. Even his political godfather Godswill Akpabio has little time for him as he is occupied in fighting his own battles. Ekere was the Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State when Chief Godswill Akpabio was the Governor.
The recent surfacing of a recording where a voice allegedly Ekere’s could be heard negotiating with a militant warlord to bring in bombs, arms and a munitions to use in destabilizing Akwa Ibom during the governorship elections has only worsened the mass exodus from the camp of the beleaguered ex-NDDC boss which used to be full to the brim with acolytes and hangers-on.
The man himself doesn’t have much time to dwell on the disappointment from people he thought were friends for life. He is busy fighting in the courts to overturn the governorship election results which he claims were marred by large irregularities.