How would Peoples Democratic Party, PDP relate to Senator Ita Enang, one of their own who is now returning to lobby them to do business with the party that displaced them from the Presidency? Enang, losing his second term bid for the Senate and falling out of favour with the powers that be in the PDP quickly defected to the All Progressive Congress, APC.
From an objective point of view, the appointment of Sen. Ita Enang as the Senior Special Assistant (SSA) to President Muhammadu Buhari on National Assembly Matters (Senate) may be about giving due recognition to intellectual prowess and experience: he easily comes in the first batch of Nigerians deeply versed in the maneuver and tactics of the Country’s legislature in the current nascent democracy. With his sound background in law, the politician is at home as a tactician and strategist in the corridors of the National Assembly.
On the flipside, Enang is equally a beneficiary of the defection culture that spells no good for Nigeria’s politics. For 16 years he fed fat on the largese of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP’s control of the Federal Government.
Indeed, there are allegations that he benefited immensely from the imposition culture that reigned supreme in that unfortunate party. But in 2015, the godfathers ditched him and he lost his return bid for Uyo Senatorial District.
It may appear now that Enang is reaping where he did not sow, but the lawyer-politician is an asset to any side he plays for. To an unbiased assessor, he is no pushover as far as legislative business is concerned. With a profound knowledge and experience in law-making gained over several years of participation in various aspects of the legislature, starting from a councilor and rising to the Senate, where he was Chairman, Senate Committee on Business and Rules. He occupied a similar position in the three terms he served in the House of Representatives
A prophet has no honour in his home and this is quite true for Enang as in the 2011 campaigns for the Senate seat he was endlessly booed for not being friendly to ‘stomach infrastructure’ politics. But the man looks at the bigger picture and not many less informed Akwa Ibomites remembers that he was the arrowhead for the legislation towards abolition of the onshore/offshore dichotomy, ensuring that his State of Akwa Ibom became the highest earner of oil revenue in the Country.
All politics are local, his constituents insist, and accuse him of denying them the Federal Polytechnic originally approved for and meant to be cited in Uyo Senatorial District, and but Enang they argued played safe and looked the other way - expecting to be rewarded with a second term to the Senate -when former Governor Godswill Akpabio allegedly hijacked it to his own village in Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District .
Nonetheless, Enang played significant sensitive, strategic roles in the National Assembly to stabillise the PDP-led Federal Government Executive while the good times lasted. Indeed, his understanding and wide-spread contacts in the National Assembly would strengthen the uncertain steps so far taken by the Buhari-led Federal Executive in National Assembly politics
Enang was born on 23 August 1962. He attended the Presbyterian Teachers Training College, Ididep, Akwa Ibom State (1974-1979). He was admitted to the University of Calabar, Calabar in 1980 where he read Law, graduating in 1984. He went on to the Nigerian Law School, Lagos and was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1985. He then entered private practice with his own law firm.
Enang became a councilor in 1987, and a member of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly in 1992.
He represented Itu/Ibiono Ibom Federal Constituency of Akwa Ibom State in the House of Representatives from 1999 to 2011. And was elected Senator for the Uyo (North East) Senatorial District of Akwa Ibom in the 2011 Federal elections.
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