Press Release
The media offensive launched by President-at-Large, Bush House Nigeria against Akwa Ibom Governor Umo Eno over what he regarded as alleged ‘poor’ performance has triggered the salvo of Governor’s personal aides.
The College of Personal Aides to the Governor of Akwa Ibom State numbering more than 100 in what is seen as a fightback fired salvo, saying ‘‘it has viewed with a deep sense of bewilderment the increasing spate of malicious, self- seeking and incongruous media onslaughts against the Akwa Ibom State Governor, His Excellency, Pastor Umo Eno, PhD.’’
In a Facebook post last Friday, November 28, Bush, a Chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had castigated the Governor over alleged poor treatment meted to contractors, civil servants, no legacy projects, weaponising poverty in the land, and his deceit on Akwa Ibom united slogan, among others.
Since his defection from PDP to APC, some ‘‘loyal’’ supporters of the Governor who decided to remain in PDP have been hauling media attacks on the governor for not keeping to his promise of flowing with members of the two political parties as he promised.
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The matter worsened when the Governor Eno sacked two of his aides who attended the recent Ibadan PDP Convention, an action some party men see as an affront on his predecessor, Udom Emmanuel who brought Eno to political power.
Sparking the fire, Pastor Uduak Ikpat, who in a press release signed for Foundational All Progressives Congress in Akwa Ibom State on Wednesday, November 26, had turned his media gun on Bush, excoriating him for mounting media attacks against the Governor.
However, Bush in another Facebook post of Friday, November 28, 2025 resumed the battle of wits and words against the Governor thus ‘‘A quick update for the weekend…”
Though Bush’s reaction might have been triggered by the rejoinder by Eno’s aides and others, he noted ‘‘Y’all be calming down o: all of these third party (alias forced or sponsored) reactions pale into empty air.
‘‘I am a one-man riot squad: I need not force or hire anyone to appear in my stead, and you cannot stop my pen.
‘‘In fact, for forcing my hand: I shall soon take this mission against Gov. Umo Eno, Ph.D. on video as well as on the electronic media.’’
According to him, ‘‘And, I hope the hired attackers are well-paid and upfront since that is one intendment of this crusade: alleviate poverty, don’t spread it, Mr Governor.
‘‘Furthermore, I hope and pray that after you leave office, these foot soldiers shall not move on: that they shall continue to defend you.
‘‘One more time, this whole thing is not about me but you can make it so to suit your narrative: this is about Akwa Ibom and the need for you to treat your team and Nsit Ubium and Akwa Ibom and residents far better than seen in the last nearly three years.
‘‘And, yes, that monumental money is our commonwealth: spend it well, because we shall ask you now and hereafter to account for it!’’
Bush who in the 2023 General elections formed a Support Group that voted massively for the emergence of Eno as the fifth democratically elected Governor of the state stated ‘‘In case you missed any of previous three entries, the issues I have raised are out there: please rather than share to mobilise sentiments, ponder on them, dear Sir.
‘‘Build or encourage Akwa Ibom businesses rather than kill them: we made you governor because we trusted that a businessman you would transform our local economy.
‘‘And, for the records, as I told you in person, I am not interested in any office or appointment from Your Excellency.
‘‘Akwa Ibom belongs to all of us, and we should at least be free to ask questions or voice an opinion or two, even if we played no role whatsoever in the emergence of our leader.
‘‘Or, are these too much to ask, or are we too unfree to speak?’’
But in a swift reaction to the post, Dr. Essien Ndueso, Dean and Elder Nsikanabasi Umoekpo, Secretary for the College of Personal Aides wrote ‘‘These media attacks, which have followed the same pattern of venting vituperative outbursts against the person and sanctity of the State Chief Executive, are not unconnected with the impending political season and the desperate zeal by many to gain attention through the back door.’’
Coming under the heading: MICHAEL BUSH’S POLITICAL DIATRIBES: The Ramblings of a Bitter Man, they observed that ‘‘The latest of these, being that of Mr Michael Bush, a former Special Assistant to the Governor on Electronic Media, during the immediate past dispensation.’’
”Michael Bush’s latest outburst arrives like a cracked mirror reflecting more of his own anxieties than any truth about Governor Umo Eno or the realities in Akwa Ibom. It drips with selective amnesia, self-exoneration, and an unsteady hand desperate for search for unmerited relevance. As a College, we do not readily grant attention to inconsequential attention seekers, however, for the sake of public clarification, we recourse to the fact that silence most often passes for an endorsement of distortion, especially as Mr Bush has severally made reference to us as appointees of His Excellency, the Governor.
Though Governor Eno has been affirming that he has no problem with ex-Governor Emmanuel, his address to his aides to be loyal or quit has pitched him against many who believed in his statements hanging neutrality.
Not done, the aides queried ”Let us ask the questions that any intellectually honest observer should ask:
When did personal bitterness become public analysis?
When did unfulfilled expectations become political commentary? When did someone who has campaigned for nearly every political party suddenly become the custodian of fidelity?
And finally, for a man claiming that the welfare of appointees are not given attention by this administration, one wonders: is he saying that aides of the Governor are today earning less than he earned in that same office between 2019 and 2023?
”Any discerning mind can easily see that Mr. Bush’s entire write-up is a lengthy riddle wrapped in resentment. You can almost hear the crackle of disappointment beneath every paragraph.
”Five months ago, he stood to coordinate the anniversary media event, spotlighting and celebrating the achievements of the Governor in just two years. What exactly changed, or did something he was expecting simply fail to land on his table? Is this about Akwa Ibom or about what hasn’t been personally given to our brother?
”Everyone knows that Governor Umo Eno holds the record of the highest number of political appointees in the country? He has appointed 368 Personal Assistants from all the political wards in the State for effective grassroots coordination. He has at least 304 Special Aides to cover other support services in Government business, he has more than 60 Honorary Special Advisers, comprising seasoned tested technocrats and political chieftains with substantial institutional memories for various sectors in the State, he has more than 30 delivery advisors, in addition to members of Boards and Commissions, members of the State Executive Council, among others. None of these groups has complained of a delay in their salaries and entitlements. No other State in the country can boost of such a profile. Mr Bush appears the only one who pretends not to know about it.
”Obviously, Mr Bush has definitely been told that the personal aides of the Governor today earn nearly twice what was obtainable previously. So one can only imagine why exactly he is complaining about their welfare? He may have been an aide previously, and until re-appointed, he is no longer one and has no authority to speak for aides of the Governor . Indeed the aphorism, crying more than the bereaved, could not have been more apt. While we cannot stop Bro Michael from penning his Book of lamentations, we will rather advise him to leave aides of the Governor out of his worries. After all, no one saw tears in his eyes, when he mounted the rostrum in March this year to collect the keys to a brand new Jeep from this same Governor he is lampooning openly with venom. Was he expecting to be getting this every month?
”Even the public knows that 7.9 million people have directly or indirectly benefited from this administration through roads, healthcare, food security programs, agricultural inputs, peace and security, and a construction economy spreading through the state like ripening harvest fields. Anyone who drives on these new roads benefits from government’s investments. Anyone who sleeps peacefully in Akwa Ibom enjoys government intervention. Anyone who receives grants, business support, medical subsidies, educational grants, food support, or agricultural empowerment is a beneficiary of government. Everyone in the State sees and appreciates the Governor, except perhaps people like Mr Bush who view from a perspective of injury rather than integrity?
’Bush talks about poverty but is blind to the hundreds already empowered by this government, including himself. Blindness is not a crime, but selective blindness is an intellectual felony.
”And since he has now become the self-anointed analyst of loyalty, perhaps he should help the public understand in which party has he not been a member? He was APC today, ANPP yesterday, PDP tomorrow, and a chairmanship candidate in a party that even Google has trouble remembering.
”In 2015 he was in the frontline campaign team of of the Governorship candidate of the APC, yes this APC he now despises, publicly deploying his pen as a hammer against the then ruling party. He only ran back to PDP when APC had no more political crumbs to offer. The public still remembers his extravagant praise-poetry for his APC candidate “The engine room,” “shoe size” “Ibom Medallion” etc. It was a political theatre so loud that even theatre arts scholars used it for a case study. And this is the man claiming to measure consistency? This is the man accusing everyone else as a betrayer?
The hardest truth he refuses to confront is that his attempt to build a political structure across the wards one that would have placed him as the shadow puppeteer of the entire state failed spectacularly. He hoped to use the contraption “Forum of Ward Leaders” to hold the entire grassroots machinery hostage. When it collapsed under the weight of its own ambition, his cheers for the governor evaporated. Had that maneuver succeeded, he would today be singing hymns in seven-part harmony. But since it failed, we suddenly have an “intellectual critique” of governance? No this is simply a lament disguised as analysis.
While Mr Bush writes from the comfort of agitation, Akwa Ibom stands tall as a construction site. Name one local government area without at least 10 kilometers of ongoing or completed road projects today. It is not possible. Model schools, standard primary health clinics, bridges, agricultural revolution, and dozens of infrastructural arteries are on the ground visible to the blind and audible to the deaf. The state is shaking with growth. Contractors are working. Communities are transforming. The economy is circulating money.
By the way, did Michael Bush complain that contractors are not being paid? Maybe he is referring to media contractors, whatever that means. We know that no contractor is being owed in the State, in line with standard procedures of payment, and recently these contractors supported the state’s security trust fund with ₦10 billion. Could such support come from people who are “not being paid”?
Michael Bush claims to speak for PDP and yet insults the same PDP by implying its members are blind. He accuses the governor of ingratitude but forgets the multitude of people including himself who have benefited from this administration. He questions the governor’s legacy but refuses to acknowledge that the seeds of legacy take time, not tantrums, to mature.
Akwa Ibom will remember Governor Umo Eno for peace, for being people-centered in his governance, for an unprecedented spread of appointments, for the first government that made local people the center of local empowerment, for model educational reforms, for healthcare modernization, for massive rural infrastructure, and for the single highest inclusiveness index since 1999.
Michael Bush will be remembered for crossing between political parties like a squirrel jumping between trees and calling it dexterity.
At the end of the day, what is truly at stake? Not Michael Bush’s feelings. Not a failed structure. Not an ungranted personal expectation. What is at stake is the truth and the future of Akwa Ibom.
And the truth is simple:
Governor Umo Eno is working.
Akwa Ibom is progressing.
The state is stable.
The people are benefiting. We as aides are grateful to our boss for his huge support to us. No amount of editorial gymnastics can bury daylight.
The College of Personal Aides stands with the governor firmly, confidently, and unapologetically. No one should use our imprimatur to advance his selfish agenda. ” they added.
