Group flays wrong mention of names in Professor Pat Utomi’s “Big Tent”

A socio-political and intellectual front with the name The Brains and Concepts with the acronym B and C has refuted the mention of Professor Chris Ekong, a professor of Economics, Dean, Faculty of Social Sciences University of Uyo and pioneer proponent of The Blue Economy as the Chairman of the Blue Economy Committee of the Big Tent, a Think Tank Group sponsored by the presidential aspirant of Labour Party and former Governor of Anambra State, Mr Peter Obi.

Rising from an advocacy discourse on the just-to-be-kicked-off presidential campaigns ahead of the 2023 General Elections in the country, the group has observed with dismay the deliberate strategy of name calling and dropping by some political groups to tarnish the political credentials and association of some prominent Nigerians in the polity.

Citing the Labour Party’s experiment of dropping the name of Professor Chris Ekong in their miscalculated political assumption; the don is a known and ardent supporter of the ruling party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the national level and in Akwa Ibom State, an enduring voice and force of the party when many members had defected for greener pastures in the state-controlled Peoples Democratic Party; Professor Ekong is a case study of a renowned party statesman who has expended his goodwill, contacts, intellect and lean resources to support the ruling APC in Akwa Ibom State, but without concomitant reward nor dividends for his doggedness in the face of stiff opposition even at the risk of his life by the opposition party in Akwa Ibom State.

The Chancellor of The Brains and Concepts, Tajudeen Ahmed, wondered at the sensibility of Professor Pat Utomi to drop the name of Professor Ekong without his consent having known his affiliation in the ruling party as a conscious act propagated by detractors to portray Professor Ekong as an anti-party fellow and lower his towering credential as the face of the new APC in Akwa Ibom State and the harbinger of the emerging APC State Government in Akwa Ibom State come May 29, 2023.

Chancellor Tajudeen added that being a pioneer and known intellectual on the concept of Blue Economy does not in any way connote membership and whatsoever patronage and support to the Labour Party in Akwa Ibom State.

He noted that the Labour Party does not have the political structure to earn the goodwill and support of Akwa Ibom State electorates who have overwhelmingly accepted the candidacy of Obong Akanimoh Udofia as the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), which Prof. Chris Ekong supported from the nominations level and other travails to lead the state out of the failed promises of PDP to Akwa Ibom people and deliver it from the stranglehold of poverty.

The Intellectual Group has rather counselled the handlers of Labour Party to extend its purported Big Tent to scout for Labour Economists from its fold of labourers and leave Professor Chris Ekong alone, as he is poised to join forces with the soon-to-be-inaugurated zonal and state chapters of the Tinubu/Shettimma Presidential Campaign Council to forge a blue economy which the personalities of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kassim Shettimma represent. They noted that the duo has tasted the senate, and governorship of their states with sterling results to be replicated in Nigeria as president and vice president respectively.

The Brains and Concepts have therefore reiterated the need for the establishment of an Electoral Offences Tribunal/Commission to nip in the bud the looming personality fracture programme of political blackmailers, fifth columnists, desperate and electoral mongers known for name calling, dropping and outright mudslinging on the political character of harmless Nigerians in the polity in view of the emerging season of thick political campaigns across the length and breadth of Nigeria ahead of 2023 general elections.