OPINION: Austin Ibok: When Fantasy Outruns Integrity

By Efiok Bassey

In the sprawling theatre of political absurdities, where impostors strut about in borrowed robes of righteousness, Austin Ibok emerges as a master of disgrace, a man whose notoriety gleams like rusted metal under a dying sun. His latest tirade against Chief Emmanuel Ironbar, Chief of Staff to Governor Bassey Edet Otu, reads less like an allegation and more like the hallucination of a man afflicted by maladaptive daydreaming, conjuring fantasies of heroism to escape the drab reality of his own failures. For Ibok to accuse anyone of corruption is a spectacle so grotesquely ironic that only the willfully gullible could fail to see through its flimsy fabrication. His claims wobble on legs of clay, unsupported by evidence, coherence, or credibility.
His character portrait as illustrated sometime ago by the Special Adviser and now Chief Press Secretary to Governor Bassey Otu, Mr. Linus Obogo suffices as a response to who really Austin Ibok is.

Let the public be reminded: Austin Ibok’s political life is littered with the shards of scandal, each shard a testament to a character steeped in duplicity. From his infamous mismanagement within the Inter-Party Advisory Council (IPAC) to his deplorable manipulation of political appointments for personal gain while serving as Special Adviser under the previous administration, his track record smells of decay. He is remembered not for service but for selling what was not his to sell, exploiting unsuspecting political hopefuls, and ballooning his pockets with funds meant for the collective. To hear him now pose as a defender of probity is to watch a seasoned pickpocket deliver a sermon on honesty. It would be amusing if it were not so pitiful.

And then there is the unforgettable disgrace of Port Harcourt 2019, where Ibok, entrusted with funds meant for Cross River’s delegates, evaporated into the shadows like a petty thief caught in the act. Delegates stranded, trust broken, and party officials enraged, yet Ibok resurfaced months later brandishing an unearned halo, hoping the stench of that betrayal had faded. It has not. Coupled with his callous diversion of funds meant for repentant militants, money earmarked to keep young men from slipping back into violence—Ibok stands exposed as a chronic violator of public trust, a man for whom misappropriation is practically second nature. A con man. Tales of ladies he conned before sneaking out of the country are still fresh in the minds of his victims. These are not rumours; they are fragments of a long-standing obituary of integrity. I dare Austin to support his putrid claims with verifiable evidence.

Against this backdrop of turpitude, his attempt to soil the name of Chief Emmanuel Ironbar is nothing more than a desperate grasp for relevance from a man suffocating in the shadows. For Austin, he sees anyone as a stumbling block and an enemy to his failed opportunism. That is exactly his approximation of Ironbar. A mortal enemy!
Ironbar, whose public stewardship has been both steady and transparent, should not be dragged into the mud by the tantrums of a disgraced opportunist. Indeed, he must not even dignify Ibok with a response, for responding would be to grant legitimacy to the illegitimate—a concession to a man whose allegations are as hollow as a drum and as banal as roadside gossip. What Ibok seeks is attention, validation, and a momentary revival of relevance. He deserves none.

In the final reckoning, Ibok’s statements are nothing more than the whimpering of a frustrated figure exiled from the corridors of influence. His envy is naked, his bitterness palpable, his intentions rancid. The people of Cross River State would do well to treat his words as they would an irritating street rant—loud, empty, and quickly forgotten. His attacks are not born of principle but of pettiness; not of courage but of desperation. And so, the Chief of Staff must rise above this sordid charade, refusing to bend down to wrestle with a man who has, by his own conduct, rendered himself unworthy of serious engagement.

Bassey writes from Calabar