HON. (DR) ELUCATE, known by his first name, OKORA EKOM, was born on 12th December 1966, during the turbulent year of the Nigerian Civil War, into the Peasant family of Mr and Mrs Philip Ekom Okora of Iyamoyong Village in Obubra LGA of Cross River State. He was Baptised in the Catholic Church at his Home Parish of St Patrick’s, Iyamoyong, with “DONALD” as his Baptismal name. He was Confirmed by Emeritus Archbishop Oneyicon at Christ the King Catholic Church, Abuja Metropolitan Archdiocese in 2011.
The name “Elucate” gained traction, and everyone who heard the name followed the question, “What’s the meaning of Elucate” Simply, Elucate etymologically derives from “elocution”; meaning the power of effective speaking”. Perhaps that’s why Dr Elucate grew up easily defined by his power of grammatical oratory and elocutionary prowess.
In 1970, after the civil war may way for peace, he presented himself for enrollment into Elementary ONE, ABC class at St Patrick’s Primary School, Iyamoyong, but was turned down because his left-hand fists could not reach his right ear by crossing his hand across his small head. However, through persistent showing up at school with sobbing eyes, crying to be admitted, the Teachers took interest in him and arranged an oral interview for him on that fateful day. Through that test of oral English at that little age, the Teachers who conducted that interview then were excited and impressed by this toddler’s exhibition of English speaking skills and accordingly offered him admission into the ABC class of Primary ONE.
First, Second, and Third Terms of his Primary One Examination test outcomes were in the First positions. This consistent display of academic excellence and brilliance not only won him admiration and endeared him to his Teacher (then Mrs Anne Agbor, who was the friend and age mate of his illiterate Mother, Mrs Monica Phillip Ekom Okora), but also sympathy.
Sympathy because she (his Class Teacher) feared that this brilliant child will end up at home as a peasant boy, who may, after all, meet up with his penchant for Education due to his poor socio-economic family background. He may not meet up with the financial criterion to attain Secondary Education not to mention Tertiary level of educational training. This fear and sympathy turned out ironically to be the elixirs that Providence pushed to set YOUNG ELUCATE on the path of history. God of Providence proved himself in the life of this lad through the years to make him an outstanding intellectual among his peers, a distinguished research scholar with consummate leadership within the circle of his career mates in pedagogy and andragogy.
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In 1975, Okora Elucate Ekom finished his Primary School with a Merit Pass in his First School Leaving Certificate Examination; and proceeded to the Secondary school at the famous St Brendan’s College (BRENCO), Iyamoyong; completed in 1980 record time. While waiting for the release of his WAEC, he was appointed Ogoja Senatorial District Account Clerk/Mobiliser into the Office of the Unity Party of Nigeria (UPN) by Chief Obafemi Awolowo through the influence of Chief Comrade Ebony Okpa, a progressive politician and legendary Trade Unionist of National and international acclaim; with an unblemished and steady character of high integrity. And Dr Elucate grew up under the political Leadership and tutelage of Chief Ebony Okpa, with this Integrity DNA so fully transmitted in him. That’s why he has taken to it as the best quality trait any politician should have.
After a brief stint with the UPN, Okora proceeded to the Federal School of Arts and Science, Ogoja, upon the release of the WASC Examination for an HSC programme in 1981. While of the Advance Level Studies, he took JAMB but with a UME score of 255, he could not gain admission to read Sociology at the University of Calabar in 1982. He enrolled again the next year, 1983, and was admitted to read Education/ English with a score of 268. This followed his inability to take up a Law Degree programme admission offer in 1982 from Cottington University, Libaria due to lack of funds and strong sponsorship, being an indigent child.
After his first year of undergraduate experience, young Elucate elected to change his Course of study, declining to continue with a B.Ed (English). The simple reason was that he could not afford to spend four whole years in the University just to study a Colonial language that he can as well speak fluently with mastery without the cost of tuition and cognitive rigour; live with it as a stigma of intellectually colonised person in perpetuity. He eventually approached the Faculty authorities to effect the change into a B.Ed (History Major) and Religious Studies.
He graduated in 1987 with a Second Class Upper Division at the age of 25 years. Enlisted into NYSC scheme and Passed Out in 1988. Took Appointment with the Cross River State Teaching Service Commission same year and was deployed to St Thomas Teachers Training College, Ogoja. In 1989, through the goodwill of Comrade Eugene Ekom, Late Engr Pius Okpa and Chief John Oyom Okpa, he was drafted to Obubra to Head the LGA Iffice of MAMSER after the creation of Yakurr LGA out of Obubra.
The MAMSER experience presented a rich opportunity for Elucate to demonstrate his brilliance and capacity, which gave him the platform for popularity in his Local Government Area among the political elite and students, even with the locals, due to the grassroots orientation nature of the transition assignment. He was on the spotlight of every public programme and soon became the bride of the Obubra political class. He was an exceptional and great social and political mobiliser in all eloquence and brilliance.
After the Transition Government terminated, with the enthronement of the General Abacha regime, Elucate contested for Councillorship Elections under the Zero-Party Option. He won the Election to represent the Apiapum WARD comprising Apiapum, Iyamoyong, Iyamitet and Ohumuruktet Communities. He also contested the next rounds of Elections into the Local Government Councils as Vice Chairman on the Ticket of MCPN together with Hon. Chief Alex Irek. They both lost to Late Hon. Raymond Obeten who ran with the support of Chief John Okpa under the UNCP. At this point, Dr Elucate returned to the service of the State Post Secondary Schools Management Board as Planning Officer. Later, in 1991, he was appointed Special Assistant to work with Chief Barr. Johnson Ebokpo who then was the Special Assistant to Governor Clement Ebri on Cabinet Affairs. He accordingly transferred his service to the mainstream of the State Civil Service on the Principal Personnel Officer’s Level. This assignment was the result of his good command of English in writing and speaking, which he was widely known for.
At the end of Governor Ebri’s Administration, Dr Elucate did a lateral transfer of Service again to the Unified Local Government Service Commission as Principal Personnel Officer at the bar. But with a burning penchant for academics, he joined the Service of the University of Calabar as a Graduate Assistant in 1998. In the same year, he applied for a Study Fellowship at the University of Calabar for a Master’s programme after an impressive leadership showing over systemic ethnic hegemonic dominance of the Cross River Community in the University by the synergy of majority tribes. He was admitted for the programme at the Premier University of Ibadan, where he read and compiled his Master’s degree majoring in Community Development. He immediately re-enrolled for his PhD, which he also completed in record time with a Registered Dissertation on Context Needs Analysis, Programme Design, Implementation and Development in South-South Nigeria.
While in the Service of the University of Calabar, Dr Elucate stood against a forms of ethnic hegemonies against Cross River Indigenous Vice-Chancellors; even at the risk of his job. He took the University Governing Council to court along with the ASUU-UCB when they plotted to discredit the regime of Prof. Kelvin Etta as VC and Prof. Ivara Esu as Deputy VC by instigating student uprising against Management, of catastrophic consequences on the school infrastructure. The aim was to end Prof. Etta’s regime ingloriously.
In a Community position paper written and singlehandedly signed by Dr Elucate, then as a Graduate Assistant, a copy of which was served the Military Head of State, His Excellency General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Professor Etta regained the Confidence of the Presidency, with the Head of State having gone through the lines of my Position Paper on the politics behind the crisis. Prof. Etta ended his tenure without further acrimony by the hegemonies.
In 2011, Dr Okora Elucate Ekom was appointed Senior Special Assistant to the Speaker of the House of Representatives, National Assembly on MDAs. This brought him close to His Excellency, now Senator Aminu Waziri Tambuwal. Here, he gained rich legislative experience, and in 2015, he contested for the Cross River State House of Assembly Election and won to represent the Obubra Two State Constituency.
And the curtain closed in 2017, 14th July, exactly 24 months, Two years into his State Assembly Representation and assignment. He lost his Seat in the House of Assembly by a hand of STATE IMPUNITY, orchestrated by mechanical mischief makers who saw his rising political profile as a threat to the survival of their politics. He was framed up and denied a sense of inclusion in the affairs of the then-ruling PDP. He was denigrated and treated as a pariah. In that discomfort, Dr Elucate took advantage of the Constitutional Window of Section 109 (i-g) and defected to the All Progressives Congress APC. His defection gave the APC a national Status but with near-death consequences on Dr Elucate’s life, if not God’s.
Even though the Constitution of the Federation Republic of Nigeria as Ammended did not find him culpable by his defection granted that there was a clear Division at the National Leadership of the PDP then as represented by Senator Markafi on the one hand; and Senator Modu Sheriff on the Other, the State Actors sacked Dr Elucate Okora Ekom from the State Assembly consciously knowing that the act on their part was unlawful.
Indeed, there was more in the State Impunity against Hon. Dr Elucate than met the eyes and understanding of his constituents in his Defection Saga. That impunity brought him pain, trauma, hardship and health problems, including termination of the education of his children, some of whom were held back at home for four years after finishing their secondary school programme and could not proceed to the University along with their classmates despite their comparative academic performances. To God be the Glory as all of them have now enrolled to their University programme of studies and in their First Class CGPA category.
God vindicated Dr Elucate with the victories he got challenging the Actions of the State Assembly and then State Government as the Federal High Court in Abuja Declared their action against him unconstitutional, unlawful, null and void; ordered his reinstatement and restoration of his rights; privileges, entitlements and benefits. This Order was not Obeyed by the Regime. They appealed the Matter at the Court of Appeal Calabar and lost the Appeal with a fine of One Hundred Thousand Naira; with an Order to comply with all the relieves granted by the Order and judgement of the Lower Court. All of which they blatantly refuse to comply with; all to extinguished him politically and materially.
The most thrilling aspect of God’s Vindication of Dr Elucate in his Defection Saga remains the fact that by shared turn of events, all his persecutors took their turns to defect to the same APC to join Dr Elucate as Old Member. Their defection came only when providence made them to lose grip of PDP strictures. Without the occurrence of a Division at the National level of the Party but time they have lost control of the Party at the State, they all defected to join the APC against the provisions of the Constitution of the Federation Republic of Nigeria and the Law.
So, in their case, there was no evidence of Division in their Party at the national level to justify their defection as it was during the time Dr Elucate defected to justify their defection. The word “impunty” got clearer in this context. So the question here is that: “Who was wrong unconstitutionally in the defection process between Dr Elucate and the Latter defectors; who punished Dr Elucate and denied him legal Two years of representation of his Constituents; all his financial entitlements; privileges and rights?
Thanks be to God for His infinite goodness and to His Excellency, Senator Prince Oru, for his high emotional intelligence, empathy, sympathetic mind, goodwill, humanness and kind-heartedness towards all, including Dr Elucate Okora Ekom. On assumption of Office as Governor with a background knowledge of Dr Elucate’s predicament, His Excellency swiftly place the matter of Elucate on the front burner for consideration making some immediate payments to him; which helped to bring this noble man of excellent integrity, a true symbol of loyalty, back on track to his political and social illumination. Dr Elucate is a man who can sacrifice his comfort and life for loyalty; so indeed, he is a political asset for loyalty any time, any day.
