Forty-One Scholarships and Not One Scholar ·
The Representation of Nothing. You Were Sent to Show a Record — Not a Shadow
Public office is not a place of honour; it is a place of accounting. When a people send you to represent them, they are not sending you to be seen — they are sending you to show. And it is only when your record is empty that you must walk carefully around the bush before standing in front of the people who sent you, hunting for the things you did not do so that they might believe you did something.
So let us speak plainly, in the open, where Ubakala can hear.
Forty-one scholarships. You announced forty-one scholarships in Ubakala — forty-one names, forty-one beneficiaries, forty-one families you claim you changed. Yet not one of them has stood up and said, yes, I am one of them. Not one. A scholarship that cannot produce a single beneficiary is not a scholarship; it is a rumour carrying your name.
The Amuzu–Eziama road. You are claiming to be building the Amuzu to Eziama road. You and I both know that road is a World Bank Intervention Project. You did not conceive it, you did not negotiate it, you did not fund it — you simply positioned yourself in front of it and asked Ubakala to thank you for it. That is not delivery. That is theatre.
The street lights. You put up street lights, and even your own brother Tommy is out claiming he was the one who fixed them. When your own household cannot confirm your testimony, the testimony has already collapsed.
And so I must ask you directly: why hide under the shadow of another man to defend the bills he passed, the projects he attracted, and the lives he genuinely touched? Take the credit that belongs to you — you have nothing to take.
It is a shameful thing for a man to be pulled together by his people, supported with their money and their names, sent out to represent them, and return with not a single creditable act of representation to show. It is a shame. And it will be a greater shame on Ubakala if any son or daughter of Ubakala casts even one vote to reconfirm this kind of record — poor performance, poor representation, poor accountability.
In your own presentation, you could not name one thing you did without first naming the Governor. When a representative can only speak in his own name by borrowing another man’s name, he has already resigned.
With all due respect, I was ashamed to sit in that hall and listen to what was presented today. Had I been the one who accompanied you there, I would have covered my face. God abeg.
I cannot celebrate poor performance. I cannot celebrate poor representation. I cannot celebrate poor presentation. Kambiakwa.
Solomon Chinedum Godwin
