By Ochereome Nnanna
GODSWILL Obot Akpabio is something else. When you are around him there are no dull moments.

He is very hyper and pays attention to small details, a quality that often gets him bursting out at his officials even at public functions for allowing avoidable hitches to mar events, such as noisy public address systems when speeches are being made.

He is a very humorous person. When he gets going he sometimes goes beyond the borderline and cracks jokes that are “un-gubernatorial”. He is also an excellent salesman, especially of his achievements as the Chief Executive Officer of Akwa Ibom State. He can stand on his feet for hours reeling off all that his regime has accomplished, complete with facts, figures and the accompanying verbal superlatives.

Some Akwa Ibom commentators have often shown their displeasure in the unending streams of VIP visitors to the new Akwa Ibom at Governor Akpabio’s instance. They say he is wasting their state funds on his personal political jamborees. They believe that the Governor is selling his candidature to the ruling class in case of a future when the elite looks around for a suitably qualified, generous and accommodative person they can trust. Akpabio’s supporters argue that it is because he has a lot to show for the huge sums of money his state collects from the federation account that he can afford to invite people to come and see. His visitors are invariably full of praises for him on television cameras after their sojourns round the state.

There is no doubt that Akpabio is a visionary leader. I am a reportorial witness to his transformational development of AkwaIbomState. Sometimes it is not only about the amount of money a person has. Vision is more important than money. But when uncommon vision meets a lot of money things do happen as they are happening in Akwa Ibom in almost all sectors, particularly infrastructure. The roads built by Akpabio have a standard of their own compared with what he met.

But to me the most impressive thing the Governor has done is in the area of education and the total social repositioning of the image of the state and its people. The Akpabio administration offers free education to all RESIDENTS of the state, not just INDIGENES. This is happening in a country where majority of the states are offering free education either to their indigenes alone (such as Imo and many Northern states) or only to girl children (such as JigawaState).

Akpabio  makes bold to invite any Nigerian child from any part of the country desiring free education to come get it in his state under his watch! His logic is simple. If only Akwa Ibom children enjoy free education, over time the children from surrounding states will fall behind and become social threats to Akwa Ibom people.

Akpabio is also extending the tarring of federal or inter-state roads into neighbouring states, such as Aba and Arochukwu in AbiaState and Calabar in CrossRiverState. He swore to end the “Okon” and “Ekaette” syndrome, whereby hundreds of thousands of Akwa Ibom youth are serving as houseboys and housemaids in distant lands. He called on all such people to return to Akwa Ibom and enjoy its newfound bounties. A former President of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, George Izobo, on a recent visit to the state, said very soon it is Akwa Ibom people who will be going to other states to look for house-helps.

There are so many reasons to appreciate the generosity and statesmanship of the man. But in recent times Akpabio appears to have gone rather berserk with “generosity”. A joke taken too far is no longer a joke.

Just about two weeks ago, we heard that Akpabio offered to sponsor the wedding of Tuface Idibia and Annie Macaulay. The package included two Sport Utility Vehicles, SUVs, bankrolling the trip of 30 wedding guests to Dubai, donation of N30 million to the couple and tarring a road to her family house in the state.

According to the Governor, it was his show of appreciation for Tuface, the “in-law” of AkwaIbomState!

While tongues wagged that such benefits were being extended to a musical star who is already wealthy from his talents, Akpabio released another “generosity bomb”. At a zonal meeting of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, of the South-South in Port Harcourt, Akpabio responded to a call by Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan that the stomachs of PDP party chieftains needed to be regularly “filled” to enable them continue working to maintain the Party “strangle” on the zone, Akpabio impulsively got up and invited each state chairman of the party to meet him and collect one million naira each to go and eat at Mr Bigg’s!

The danger in all these outlandish splurging of AkwaIbomState funds is that with just over two years to the end of his gubernatorial venture, the outrage over these spending might overshadow the great contributions of this ebullient lawyer who put AkwaIbomState in the “A Class” of the most rapidly developing states of the federation.

Threatened with the possibility of being hounded to come back and answer questions to anti-graft agencies or the next regime, the Governor might be tempted or forced to impose a relation on Akwa Ibom people in order to avoid harassment in retirement.

If that happens, he will be falling into the same problem his predecessor, Victor Attah, did which led to many face-offs with his successor, Akpabio. But this time, Akpabio’s successor may not be as restrained as he has been towards Attah.

To reduce the post-power mess Akpabio must sober down. He must tread with caution and focus more on the good works he started. He does not need the negative publicity he has brought upon himself.