By Anthony Bisong Attah
For more than a decade, Mike Irom Etaba, a three-term member of the House of Representatives ‘representing’ Obubra/Etung Federal Constituency has embodied incompetence, disappointment, and a total disaster for the Federal Constituency. He represents a system where the people elect a voice only to be abandoned by it.
In Obubra and Etung, the roads tell the story: overgrown verges, eroded culverts, and empty constituency offices. We joke that our representative is a “phantom politician,” visible only on the ballot and in Abuja. In truth, our frustration is a mirror of a broader malaise — one where representation has become an investment, not a duty, and access to a lawmaker now depends on loyalty, patronage, or political utility.
In today’s Obubra/ Etung Federal Constituency, the constituency–representative relationship has mutated from mutual obligation into a hierarchy of privilege. The federal lawmaker, who is supposed to be a messenger of the people, is now a broker of influence who thrives on silence, sycophancy, and selective generosity.
This is the story of Honourable Mike Etaba.Hon. Mike Etaba previously, a petrol filling station manager, rode to power on the back of local goodwill and grassroots promises. His first election came amid hope: he was young, assertive, and fluent in the language of reform. But as tenure turned into routine, idealism gave way to entitlement. By his second term, his constituency office had become symbolic, not functional.
As a matter of fact, he didn’t appear in Etung throughout the electioneering period for his second term- he won overwhelmingly. The same scenario played out in the 2023 general election. For the past seven years, hon. Mike has not stepped his feet in Etung Local government. That the Etung people continue to vote for him is one of the wonders of our contemporary political history.
In an era where nearly every public official brands themselves online, Mike Etaba is completely absent from social media. This has made him a ghost in the digital town square. No official pages, no policy updates, no responses to criticism. The political invisibility is not accidental — it is strategic. Inaccessibility protects him from accountability; absence shields him from confrontation.
Mike Etaba has elevated Sycophancy as Statecraft. He refers to himself as Imoke’s son, Ayade’s son and now Otu’s son-one child with multiple political fathers. He worships every governor in Pellegrino House, and lavishes their wives with gifts leading to a bedroom negotiation with their husbands for a party ticket for him.
As I write this, it is alleged that he is contributing heavily into a church project in Abuja for Her Excellency the wife of the governor-the pattern has not changed, but e don cast. A visit to Etung reveals schools with collapsing roofs, health centres without equipment, and roads that fade into forest trails. Constituency projects exist mostly on paper. Even the signage for abandoned boreholes or youth empowerment programmes bears the same inscription: “Facilitated by the Federal Government through Hon. Mike Etaba, Member representing Obubra /Etung.” We hardly see any real delivery.
Every four years, elections in the constituency unfold like a ritual drama with a prewritten ending. The lawmaker’s name appears on posters, his proxies tour communities, and his campaign message is recycled: “Continuity for development.” The deeper tragedy is not just one lawmaker’s neglect but the resignation of the people. The leaders of Etung have become complicit in this catastrophe in representation called Mike Etaba. It is alleged that he funds their extravagant lifestyles in return for election victory in their wards- what a shame to Etung Leaders. It is even more painful to think that this honourable Mike Etaba succeeded Senator John Owan Enoh- the Doyin of representation in Cross River State.
The larger story is not about one man; it is about a set of leaders in Etung that rewards invisibility through bribes and kickbacks.There is an old saying in Etung: “The yam that stays too long in one barn begins to rot.” Hon. Mike Etaba illustrates this proverb perfectly. Longevity without accountability breeds arrogance. It creates a sense of ownership over a constituency that should, by design, own its representative. The moral cost of this political detachment is enormous. It teaches young people that power is sustained through loyalty, not service; through access, not ideas. It silences dissent and normalizes failure. When sycophancy becomes the pathway to influence, mediocrity becomes governance.
In the 2025 budget, Hon. Mike Etaba has at least 1.2 billion in projects hidden in some obscure agencies of government with the sole intent of syphoning the funds as usual. The Federal Constituency has 21 political wards, and for 12 years running, there is very little to show from our ‘representative’ not even in his community of Apiapum.
Let me conclude by first advising the governor of Cross River State that the loyalty he is seeing from Mike Etaba isn’t new, it is his playbook and he should not fall for it like his predecessors. To the Leaders of Etung, it remains a shame that we called out Senators John Enoh and Sandy Onor at the peak of their national assembly stewardship but we cannot call out a nonperforming member who only represents himself and family. For our brothers in Obubra, I will allow you people to make your choices- choosing between a brother who does nothing for the family to progress, and a friend who has the interest of the family.
Anthony Bissong Attah, is the former IPAC Chairman, CRS.
*The views expressed and published here are entirely the author’s.