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Acceptance of the party

Well, it is the
fastest growing political party in Akwa Ibom state. I can tell you with
all amount of certainty that while other parties are going down in
terms of membership, we are increasing every other day, with more
members coming to join us. Nigerians are almost imbibing the culture of
one-man-one-vote and the era of vote stuffing and extreme rigging is
all gone for good and with that, the vote of the people will count. So
whoever the electorate wants are the people that will represent them,
so it won’t be all business as usual.

The electorate will
decide on who and which party they want to govern them. And if you
follow the event, if you walk the streets in Akwa Ibom, you will be
able to know that Peoples Democratic Party only exists in paper and as
the election days approach, it becomes clearer that the Action Congress
Nigeria are coasting home victorious. So, we will win the election.

Challenging party primaries

There hasn’t been
any problem per se, but we only had a challenge. You know our party
stands for internal democracy and preaches it all over. But in one
federal constituency, Itu/Ibiono Federal Constituency to be precise, we
have four aspirants. One scored 363, the other a little over 100,
another one 14, and the last scored a little over that. But we don’t
know how the third placed man made the list. However, we have made
representation and I think the party is looking at that.

Failure of the state government

You know we are
almost receiving the largest chunk of revenue, in terms of derivation
and funds from Federation Account and most Akwa Ibom people have not
seen projects on ground. There is no transparency and openness in
governance. Besides, if you came to Akwa Ibom, the greatest problem we
are now having is the level of insecurity. People are asking why this
event is almost paralysing activities in the state. There is no social
life in Akwa Ibom at the moment, basically because the government has
failed to provide security and has failed to protect lives and property.

You know there is
an adage that says, “Show me your friend and I will tell you who you
are?” Basically, the people that make up the PDP-led government in the
state, their integrity are questionable and it is almost an established
fact that the state government is almost making it an acceptable norm
that if you don’t belong to a cult, you cannot be part of the
government. There was an amalgamation of cult groups and the state
governor, in the guise of youth organisation and all that, was there in
person and inaugurated that body. So, when these hoodlums unleash their
havoc on the people, people tended to ask why do we have government?
And these people are walking the streets and are being patronised by
government.

State of insecurity

Things are bad in
terms of kidnapping and this has almost turned into a political way of
caging people that have opposite views. Just a few days ago, a
prominent paramount ruler, James Robert Obot of Nsitubman Local
Government, was murdered in cold blood. So, cases of serial killing and
kidnapping abound in the state and most of the people that have been
kidnapped have come back to say if you hold divergent views, they will
kidnap you, extort money from you so that you don’t have the fund to
muscle up any opinion.

I am sure the DG
(Director-General) of SSS (State Security Services) does not know about
this and I want to believe that the Director of SSS in Akwa Ibom does
not know what the governor is doing. He has applied for so many SSS
personnel and when they are now posted to the state, he off-loaded them
to persons who do not have business to be attached with these personnel.

Now, the objective
of keeping these personnel is that on Election Day, they will use them
as if they are on official duty. This could have an over-bearing
influence on the voting populace. They can use them to scare the
electorate. They can use them to commit all kinds of havoc and you know
without these personnel, they themselves cannot come out on Election
Day to commit the crime by themselves. My call to the DG of SSS is that
he should ensure that these personnel should be withdrawn. If they have
excess SSS personnel in Akwa Ibom State, they should be withdrawn and
deployed to the states where they are needed.

Political credential of ACN governorship candidate

John James
Akpanudoedehe had been a chairman of Uyo Local Government. It was the
largest Uyo Local Government before the military now decided to split
them. When the 4th republic came alive, he was elected into the Senate
in 1999 to 2003. Soon after that, he was appointed by the late
president, Umaru Musa Yar’Adua as Minister of State for FCT and you
know FCT is a mini-state. I think he has a good pedigree in governance.
The support is massive for ACN has been massive. The only thing PDP
have that we don’t is they have been utilising the state media very
well. They have propaganda, you know they are in power. They will
normally have more resources than we have.

Call for fairness

We made
representation to National Broadcasting Corporation for access to the
media and since we have made representation, they’ve started to cave in
a little. However, we don’t know how the events in the next few weeks
will be like and if will start be able to sell our programmes on the
state media. My call to INEC (Independent National Electoral
Commission) is to remain the unbiased umpire which we expect them to
be. They should allow the votes of the people to count rather than
allow themselves to be used by the government for purposes other than
overseeing the elections fairly.