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Tag: Udom Emmanuel

  • Don’t turn Akwa Ibom to war zone, church leaders warn politicians

    Church leaders in Akwa Ibom State have cautioned against acts capable of truncating the nation’s democracy.

    They took a swipe at forces inciting violence in the state, warning they would have God to contend with in their efforts to plunge the state into needless chaos.

    The leaders spoke during an interactive meeting with some government functionaries at the corporate headquarters of the Akwa Ibom Christian Assembly (ACA) in Uyo.

    The Prelate Emeritus of Methodist Church Nigeria Dr Sunday Mbang canvassed for oneness, peace and security in Akwa Ibom.

    He condemned in strong terms all manner of political crises by those he described as faceless actors.

    Mbang, a former President of the Christian Association of Nigeria (CAN) said believers must stand strong against those interested in dragging them into the era of backward and visionless governance.

    He told them to lead by example and avoid bad behaviors that would tarnish the image of the church.

    President of Akwa Ibom Christian Assembly (ACA), Archbishop Cletus Bassey enjoined Christians in the state to be involved in the forthcoming general elections.

    Read Also: Akwa Ibom crisis: APC ‘ll resist intimidation, says zonal chair

    He told them to vote quality leaders that will impact their lives positively.

    He said without quality and god- fearing leaders like Governor Udom Emmanuel, citizens would not enjoy peace and security in the state.

    According to him: “The Fathers of Faith and other men of God in the state have spoken concerning the re-election of our dear Governor, Udom Gabriel Emmanuel and we urge every Christian

    Irrespective of the denomination to see the second term of Udom as a people’s project.

    “We want all of you to vote for credible, quality and God fearing leaders in 2019 general elections so that we can have a better society to practice Christianity.

    “Note that if the state is note peaceful, there will be no church.”

    Secretary to the State Government, Dr. Emmanuel Ekuwem, Commissioner for Information and Strategy Charles Udoh, former military governor and Director-General of the Divine Mandate, Otuekong Idongesit Nkanga poured encomiums on the Governor for his outstanding performance despite distractions by those they called enemies of progress.

    They said despite the lean resources, Emmanuel has embraced prudent management to provide infrastructures, industries, modern health care facilities, free and compulsory education, youth empowerment, sports development among others.

    They commended the church leaders for their prayers and warned the state government will no longer tolerate any activity that would bring it to disrepute.

  • Akwa Ibom Assembly crisis: APC vows to stop molestation of its lawmakers

    The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State has said it would not fold its arms and allow the continued molestation and harassment of its members by Governor Udom Emmanuel and members of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

    In a statement signed by its spokesman Nkereuwem Ekongekere, the APC condemned Tuesday’s ‘invasion’ of the House of Assembly by the governor and the Senator representing Uyo Senatorial District, Bassey Albert.

    This is as the Senate mandated its Police Affairs Committee to investigate alleged invasion of Assembly complex by persons suspected to be political thugs.

    Describing the invasion as the height of impunity and recklessness, the APC said: “Nov 27, 2018 was indeed a day Udom Emmanuel broadened outrageously the territory of his impunity as he traversed boundaries of laws to force his way into Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly without any invitation extended to him by the ‘factional’ Speaker Nse Ntuen.

    “APC as a party cannot continue to fold its arms and watch the legislature controlled by its members being rudely harassed and molested by the very man that is supposed to protect them.”

    The party berated the governor for misinforming the state, country and the international community through a news conference after “perpetrating all the havocs and levelling false accusations on the five APC lawmakers who went into the hallowed chamber of the assembly to carry out their peaceful legislatives duties.

    It said: “This kind of attitude amounts to nothing but only a clever way.

    “We therefore call on the general public to discountenance such unholy enunciations emanating from his press conference because there are mere fabrications  contrived to smokescreen the truth on ground- his incompetence and failures in utilising the mandate properly in the way that would have given him hope of re-election, hence the madness all the way!”

    Paying allegiance to the factional Speaker, the party said it would deploy its full strength to defend its members’ right.

    In Abuja yesterday, the Senate mandated its Committee on Police Affairs to investigate the alleged invasion. Senate President Bukola Saraki gave the Senator Tijjani Kaura-led committee 48 hours to submit its report to the Upper Chamber for consideration.

    Saraki said the investigation became necessary to enable the Senate appreciate the true picture of what actually transpired in the Akwa Ibom Assembly on Tuesday.

    He said the Senate can take a position only after establishing what happened in Akwa Ibom State, even as he assured stakeholders that the Senate would, at all times, stand to defend democracy.

    According to him, the invasion of a democratic institution like a House of Assembly should be condemned wherever it occurs.

    The resolution to probe the incident followed the report of the alleged invasion presented by Senator Bassey Albert Akpan.

    The Akwa Ibom Northeast senator told his colleagues that suspected thugs invaded and disrupted activities at the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly on Tuesday.

    He claimed to have personally witnessed the alleged invasion when he visited the Assembly complex in the company of Governor Emmanuel.

    Akpan also claimed that the alleged invaders were led by a top police officer in the state.

    He specifically accused the state Commissioner of Police, Musa Kimo, of leading and taking side with the invaders to truncate democracy in the state.

    Akpan also said that the police commissioner took side with the minority APC lawmakers in the state to cause the breakdown of law and order.

    Senator Jibrin Barau (Kano North) raised a point of order to inform the Senate that the issue of Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly was in court.

    Barau cautioned that the Senate should learn to distance itself from state matters.

    The Senate, he added, should concentrate on national issues and leave state matters for the states.

    Barau’s position did not go down well with some senators. They attempted to shout him down.

    Tempers began to rise, forcing Saraki to intervene and insisted that the Senate should be interested wherever democracy was under threat.

    Saraki said: “We were all here when this chamber was invaded. We cannot tolerate the invasion of the hallowed chamber of any legislative house.

    “It is completely unacceptable. The Police Affairs committee should find out what happened and report back to the Senate within 48 hours.”

    The National Association of Nigerian Students (NANS) through its Senate also condemned the invasion, describing it as an attempt to truncate democracy in Akwa Ibom State.

     

    Court restrains factional Speaker

    A High Court sitting in Uyo yesterday granted an order of interim injunction restraining factional Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly Speaker Nse Ntuen from parading himself as speaker pending the determination of motion on notice filed by Ekemini Udim Esq, a counsel to another factional Speaker Onofiok Luke.
    The ruling by Justice Ekaete Obot ordered that the injunction be served on Ntuen in person and also be pasted on every conspicuous part of the Assembly complex.

  • Emmanuel deserves second term, says aide

    The Special Assistant to Governor Udom Emmanuel on Marketing and Brand Management, Mr. Louis Udom, has begun grassroots campaign for the reelection of his principal in 2019.

    Udom, who took his campaign to Unit 2, Ikot Ibritam Ward one in Oruk Anam Local Government Area, urged all electorate in his area, urging the people to vote for candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Governor Emmanuel.

    He said Emmanuel should continue in office till 2023 to enable him consolidate on his achievements in the areas of infrastructure and industrialisation.

    The governor’s aide mentioned the Ikot Ibritam-Ikot Ekpuk- Inen Ekeffe road as one of the projects which has been fixed by the current administration after years of neglect by past administrations.

    Udom assured the people that they would gain more in terms of facilities, human capital development and employment opportunities through aggressive industrialisation drive of the government, if they can give Emmanuel second term in office.

    He recalled that Akwa Ibom had accepted PDP from 1999, urging the people to sustain the cordiality. He said no political party has anything on ground to show in the state, except PDP which has remained in heart of the people from the inception of the democratic dispensation.

    The supervisor for Youths in Oruk Anam Local Government Area, Mr. Kufre Ndarake Sam, expressed gratitude to the governors’ aide for his initiative.

    Ndarake urged other public office holders to emulate the example to make the campaign easier for  Emmanuel next month in line with directives of Independent National Electoral commission (INEC).

     

  • Seven jailed for rape in A’Ibom, 30 cases in court

    Seven persons have been jailed for rape in Akwa Ibom while 30 rape cases are ongoing in various courts in the state, Commissioner for Women Affairs and Social Welfare, Dr Glory Edet has said.

    Edet, who disclosed this on Monday to our correspondent in Uyo, said the feat was achieved by government between 2017 and this year.

    According to her, the Governor Udom Emmanuel administration was committed to the full implementation of the Child Rights Law as well as the protection of vulnerable persons from abuse.

    She appealed to states in the country that have not domesticated and implemented the Child Rights Law to do so without further delay.

    The commissioner said rape cases and similar crimes would be curtailed if states with domesticate and fully implement the Child Rights Law.

    “When I called for the domestication of the Child Rights Law, I don’t mean only domestication but emphasis on implementation. It is one thing to domesticate it, but another thing to implement it. I want to thank our governor, Udom Emmanuel for implementing the law in the state because anything that has to do with child abuse, falls under the Child Rights Law.

    “So far between last year and now, seven persons have been convicted and jailed while we have 30 cases in courts. I want to thank the judiciary who has been sending their lawyers to assist us in court, court assessors, the women lawyers and other NGOs for their supports in the course of trying these cases.

    “We have created a lot of awareness in schools, churches and other public places on the punishment associated with rape, child trafficking and other child abuses. We do not publicize rape cases so that the victim should not be stigmatized; in the Child Rights Law, you have to protect the child from trauma and psychological stress”,
    she said.

    According to the University lecturer turned politician, the awareness efforts of the ministry has helped a lot in recent times as the reported cases especially on rape has reduced drastically, adding that, the fear of victim being sent to jail has also helped in this direction.

    On benefits from her ministry to Akwa Ibom women, she explained that, in the current local government administration, 56 women are serving as councilors and more than 57 are also serving as supervisory councilors across the 31 local government councils in the state, adding that, most permanent secretaries, Head of service, board members, commissioner, House Members are women.

    “Governor Udom Emmanuel government is the first to send widows to pilgrimage in Israel, five widows each were taken from the 31 local government councils and sent for pilgrimage; again, 155 women, five each from the 31 council areas are given N200,000 grants for trading in their businesses”.

  • Akwa Ibom: Udom’s service to God and humanity

    When Udom Emmanuel took the oath of office as Akwa Ibom State Governor on May 29, 2015, he knew that he was not just carrying out a ceremonial ritual that the occasion demanded. He fully understood the political, moral, social and spiritual responsibilities resting on his shoulders. He was doing what the occasion demanded, all right. But he was also making a solemn pledge to his creator that he would deliver on what he had promised to do for the people of the state if they gave him their mandate. They had fulfilled their part of by giving him their mandate and so the time had come for him to begin the process of fulfilling his promises to them.

    The governor has shown these past three and half years that he is not the conventional politician who would discard the oath of office the moment he leaves the inauguration grounds, as many are wont to do. He has, in words and deeds, remained guided by that oath. And this is perhaps the reason he soon found himself on a collision course with those who expected him to be the ‘normal politician’ – those who sold him to the people of the state as the best material to govern them, but who would, along the line, realize they made a ‘mistake’ in their choice, completely ignoring God’s prerogative in installing leaders as it pleases Him.

    Akwa Ibom is a state that occupies a special place in God’s heart. The full name of the state (Akwa Abasi Ibom, meaning Almighty God), did not come by happenstance. Those who gave the state that name knew that they were invoking God into its affairs, and that He would always have a hand in what transpires in the state at all times. And what better choice as governor at a time likes this than a man with deep religious convictions and obeisance to God in all his actions!

    Udom has remained committed to God and the people of the state since assuming the reins of government. To God, he has not wavered in his religious obligations by allowing his political position to take the better part of him and wearing a toga that is different from a man of faith and a church elder that he was before he became governor. Surely, the former cannot get subsumed by the latter.

    If outward commitment to carrying out religious obligations are a measure of one’s religiosity, then Udom hasn’t been found wanting, as he is said not to miss his regular Sunday services, except when the demands of office do not permit him the time to do so.

    Recall that about one and half years after assuming office, the governor escaped death right inside a place of worship, when a new church building he went to inaugurate collapsed, killing quite a good number of worshipers. His plan to build a 10, 000 capacity church building is in line with his effort to keep the state on the religious path that has enabled it to triumph in the face of numerous challenges, some of which have been created by its leaders.

    In 1983, while speaking at his valedictory church service at Qua Iboe Church, Edgerly Road, in Calabar, the late Dr. Clement Isong, who was about to bow out as governor of the then Cross River State, had said the greatest lesson he learnt during his four-year tenure as governor was that to be a successful politician in Nigeria, one must be able to call black white, and call white black. He vowed never to advise any of his children to go into politics in Nigeria. Isong was too decent, polished and refined a man to have dabbled into politics in the first place.

    Udom has not been a ‘successful’ Nigerian politician, in the late Dr. Isong’s understanding. This is because he does not know how to call black white, or call white black. It is even more so because his quiet, calm and warm disposition is at variance with what the average Nigerian politician is known to be – all noise but little action. His has been little noise but more action.

    The governor’s commitment to the people of the state has seen him execute projects that have direct impact on their lives. Perhaps the reason not much seems to be heard about his achievements outside the state is that they haven’t been accompanied by the propaganda that has become the hallmark of performance, especially at state and federal levels. But the people of the state know the truth. They know that Udom is working. They also know that, in contrast, some of the so-called legacy projects that were supposed to have been executed with much fanfare and propaganda, which have left the state mired in huge debts, were nothing but a scam that put the state’s money in the pocket of an individual, as it has emerged.

    Udom’s tenure has been a test of his commitment to the two ‘constituencies’ that really matter – God and the people of the state. In another six months or so, these two constituencies will decide whether or not he has remained true to the oath he took in his first coming. They are the ones that will judge him based on his performance so far. Thankfully, the governor knows this quite well, the reason he has remained focused on delivering on his promises.

    Let nobody imagine that they hold the key to the governor’s second term in office. Akwa Ibom is not a state where an individual assumes the position of an emperor because he had the good fortune of holding office, which allowed him unfettered access to the resources of the state – a state where people hold public office at the pleasure of one individual.

    We have seen it happen in other states, where somebody plays God, turning a deaf ear to pleas to allow a governor go for a second time as if he has the power of life and death. Akwa Ibom is not that state.

     

    • Etim, a retired public servant, lives in Lagos

     

  • OBJ’s visit: Udom Emmanuel’s swansong 

    Chief Olusegun Obasanjo’s visit to Akwa Ibom State on Sunday October 28, ostensibly on a solidarity visit to Governor Udom Emmanuel is another of the many insensitive dark paths by the Udom Emmanuel administration in Akwa Ibom State. But one would, nevertheless accept this one, as a foreshadowing of the end of the administration and the church service with Chief Obasanjo in attendance as a valedictory service to mark the end of the current administration in the state.

    How else would any Akwa Ibom person react to the presence of a man, who while in office did not hide his disdain and unmitigated hatred for the people of Akwa Ibom State in particular and the entire Niger Delta region in general?

    One would have thought that the visit and the church attendance should have been a time for the former president to apologise to the people of the state and seek the face of God in repentance, and forgiveness by the people. But that was not to be. Instead, Obasanjo went into his famed melodrama of an all knowing, all conquering, and omnipresent, all invincible enthroner-in-chief. But the people are not all so forgetful to recount the many actions and inactions of Chief Obasanjo that have continued to cast a pall over his relationship with the state.

    The people cannot just forget the following:

    It was Chief Olusegun Obasanjo that successfully resurrected the onshore/offshore oil dichotomy that the government of Ibrahim Babangida had put to rest. Obasanjo used the instrumentality of the Supreme Court to jerk the obnoxious dichotomy back to life. It took the spirited effort of Nigerians of conscience and the selfless efforts of leaders like Obong Victor Attah, Senator Udo Udoma to make the National Assembly pass the bill that many called political solution to Obasanjo’s battle against the region.

    The first time the legislative arm of government at the federal level, exerted its power over presidential veto under the present democratic dispensation was the over-riding of Obasanjo’s veto against the Niger Delta Development Commission bill, which the president refused to sign into law. It, again took the goodwill of Nigerians and the National Assembly to establish the Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC, as an interventionist agency for the development of the entire Niger Delta region.

    Whilst Obasanjo was president, we cannot point at any tangible development project Akwa Ibom people should have benefitted from.

    All these, notwithstanding, we recognise that Akwa Ibom people, being Christians are enjoined to forgive. But in forgiving, the former president ought to show some remorse and a contrite heart. But this was not the case. Obasanjo, in a highly insensitive and provocative manner, rather chose to lecture the people on how they should go about their choice of who to govern them. Obasanjo and his puppeteers forgot that the former president is an ordinary voter, with one vote; a vote that can only be cast in Otta, Ogun State.

    I recognize this as insulting to the collective sensibility of Akwa Ibom people, but also see it as a further affirmation of the steady journey to political denouncement for Obasanjo’s chief host.

    I advise Akwa Ibom People to disregard the well-known self-glorification and tendentious pontifications of a man in constant search for reinvention and revalidation. Akwa Ibom State has moved beyond the reach of Obasanjo’s political antics. The people are well aware of the need for a total reversal of the current disruptions in statutory governance, occasioned by a clear lack of vision and sinister aloofness to the realities of the state’s current political and social imperatives.

    It will also be important for OBJ and his agents to be aware that Akwa Ibom State of today has completely embraced the tenets of democratic culture where individual’s rights to choice are not only respected, but the collective wishes and aspirations of the people entrenched. This is a departure from the self-seeking, undemocratic disposition, which gave rise to Obasanjo’s aborted third term project.

    We in Akwa Ibom State and the entire Niger Delta region are grateful to the National Assembly for snatching the NDDC Bill from the imminent death on the hands of Obasanjo. Today the NDDC, where an Akwa Ibom son, His Excellency (Obong) Nsima Ekere, is currently at the helm of affairs, restructuring the balance sheet, reforming

    the statutory governance system and protocols, restoring the NDDC’s core mandate and reaffirming their commitment to ethical integrity and value chain management. The agency has driven development and reinvigorated the socio-economic safety net of the people of the region. Akwa Ibom has been a major beneficiary of the inherent developmental considerations that birthed the interventionist agency and we are happy that Obasanjo must have been browbeaten to see the massive development that have accrued to the state as a result of  the divine upturning of Obasanjo’s anti Akwa Ibom wishes and actions.

    I hope they sang the nunc dimitis during the service as a symbol of the drawing of the curtain on the Governor Udom Emmanuel’s administration in the state.

     

    • Hon Eyiboh, former Spokesperson House of Representatives, is chairman, Cross River Basin Development Authority and member of the All Progressives Congress.

  • Campaign billboards: APC set to confront A’Ibom govt over planned protest

    The fracas between the Akwa Ibom state government and the state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) over the alleged destruction of APC campaign billboards took a different dimension on Saturday.

    The APC in the state had risen against the People’s Democratic Party-controlled state government for pulling down campaign billboards of President Muhammadu Buhari and its governorship candidate, Obong(Dr.) Nsima Ekere.

    The state commissioner for environment and mineral resources, Dr. Iniobong Essien and the chairman of Uyo local government area, Mr. Okon Okon were last week arrested and detained by the police following a petition by the APC that its campaign billboards were destroyed by agents of the state government.

    At a press conference on Friday, the State Chairman of the APC National Youth Caucus, Mr. Iniobong John raised the alarm that the state government was planning to organize women in the state to stage a protest against the APC government at the center.

    The APC youth leader said the protest, planned to hold in major streets of the state capital on Saturday, remained one of the many plans by the PDP in the area to intimidate and misrepresent the President and the APC in the area.

    He threatened to stage a counter protest against the Governor Udom Emmanuel PDP government should it go ahead with the protest.

    Read Also: ‘I ‘ll not leave APC despite my loss in primary election’

    The party, therefore, called on security agencies to stop the planned protest as this, according to them, could lead to a breakdown of law and order in the area.

    “We wish to alert the security agencies and the general public of the street protest planned by the Akwa Ibom State government against Mr. President and the APC federal government. The protest is planned to take place tomorrow, Saturday, 20th October, 2018.

    “As we speak, mobilization has been done. Buses to convey PDP goons and thugs across the state have been mobilized. Funds have been disbursed to the different groups and individuals for mobilization. T-shirts and other logistics have been arranged. A meeting is ongoing now at the Government House to fine tune the plans.

    “The protesters are to march from the Ibom Plaza to the government house where the governor is billed to address them. The governor has shown that he is deceitful, unreliable and desperate. Just yesterday, he was summoned to the Presidential Villa to explain his government’s actions against the APC’s billboards in the state. And he apologized and begged for a lifeline from the president.

    “Such mischievous and wicked plots by the state government are capable of triggering crisis, tension and in the extreme case, breakdown of law and order in the state. The failed PDP government must learn to manage its frustrations.” John said.

    He described the plan as undemocratic and called for an issue based campaign adding that the party could be forced to organize a counter protest against the Governor.

    “We insist the governor must campaign based on his scorecard and not on sentiments and campaigns of calumny against Mr. President and the APC federal government.

    “As a people, we don’t deserve this and we never bargained for this. If the state government don’t desist from this mischievous street protest against our president and party, we’ll be left with no other option than to also plan a mass action against the failed, inept, clueless, rudderless and directionless government in the state.

    “This government has failed irredeemably and the people of the state can’t wait for the 2019 election to replace it with a better brand of governance.” he said

  • Amnesty: Normalcy returns to Akwa Ibom communities

    Normalcy is gradually returning to communities in Etim Ekpo and Ukanafun local government areas of Akwa Ibom which were under siege for over four years by armed militants and cultists.

    The development, which follows the amnesty granted by Governor Udom Emmanuel to the repentant hoodlums, has seen residents of the communities returning to their homes to resume their normal lives.

    Natives of the communities including Otoro-Obong, Iwukim and Uruk Ntak, our correspondent learnt, have begun rebuilding their houses destroyed by the then rampaging militants.

    During the four-year siege hundreds of lives were lost while those who left the communities have started returning back gradually.

    Speaking when he led a fact finding delegation to visit the militants to ascertain the level of their repentance  in their camps located at O/C Town  school, Uruk Ntak, the chairman, Etim Ekpo local government area, Mr. Udeme Eduo, expressed appreciation to the militants for the embracing the amnesty programme.

    He asked them to completely sheathe their swords and embrace total peace as that is the only way they could access development in the area.

    “We are gathering because it is God that has arranged this day. The government of Governor Udom Gabriel Emmanuel is ready to develop the area but he cannot do it if there is no genuine and total ceasefire”.

    The chairman who announced a one million naira (N1000.000) donation to the militants disclosed that government has begun documentation of all the repentant militants with a view to ensuring that all of them who embrace the amnesty programme are totally reintegrated into the society.

    Read Also: Akwa Ibom church leaders back Emmanuel’s reelection bid

    He said the local government council on it part has undertaken to clear all environments and vicinity of public schools and institutions including health facilities abandoned at the wake of the crisis.

    The Area Commander of Etim Ekpo local government, Mr. Eze Chijioke, lauded the militants for embracing the peace initiatives stressing that it was the only way they could get the attention of government.

    He stressed that the youths are the true owners of the nation and should do everything possible to protect and not destroy it.

    “We are here because God has touched the minds of all of us, and as we are into peace let it be total from our minds. As youths you are the owners of the land, our generation is gradually disappearing from the surface earth, it’s you the youths that will take over and you have a duty to protect the land and not destroy it”

    In his response, leader of the militants, Mr. Unyime Friday Ibanga, alia “Overcomer” who spoke in his native dialect promised genuine ceasefire but called the state government to begin the process of reintegrating his members into the society.

    He called on government not to hesitate to seek clarification from his group whenever further issues of infractions occur in the communities.

    “We have ready to partner with the state government. Before government was not closer to us, but today we are being treated as important people, and in that process we will team up with the state governor, but government should reintegrate the youths because something happen before we decided to strike”.

    “We have decided to embrace peace, but government should always call us whenever there are further issues in the communities” he stressed.

     

  • Over 100 cultists surrender arms in A’Ibom

    Peace may have finally returned to Etim Ekpo and Ukanafun local government areas of Akwa Ibom state as 0ver 100 cultists belonging to
    various groups have surrendered their arms to the police.

    The development which is part of the state government’s move towards granting amnesty to the hoodlums who have terrorizing the council
    areas, saw the hoodlums renouncing their membership of the cult groups.

    The state Commissioner for Police, Mr. Adeyemi Ogunjemilusi, who paraded the suspects before Governor Udom Emmanuel during a
    reconciliation and rehabilitation visit to the local government areas on Tuesday, said that this was the fourth time the Governor visited the areas for a peace-seeking mission.

    Ogunjemilusi appreciated the governor’s amnesty to the repentant cultists despite the various atrocities committed by them.

    Governor Emmanuel, while addressing the hoodlums, blamed the underdevelopment currently witnessed in the Ukanafun and Etim Ekpo on
    their activities, stating that no contractor would be willing to work in areas where there is no peace.

    The Governor cited an instance where he wanted to bring a World Bank project to the Ukanafun but the contractors chose somewhere else
    instead because of the activities of cultists in the area.

    Governor Emmanuel however assured them of safety for the fact that they have surrendered their weapons and embraced peace, and urged
    Overcomer and other leaders who to follow suit between now and Thursday morning or face the full wrath of the law.

    Speaking on behave of the culprits, Faith Friday Benson alias Fine Face from Etim Ekpo, thanked the Governor for his relentless effort to
    restore peace in Ukanafun and Etim Ekpo in particular and the state at large, and assured that they have shunned violence and embraced peace, and prayed for forgiveness as they operated under darkness.

    The hoodlums are Mentor Monday, Tendom Jonah, Stainless, Enebong Sunday Akpan, Ubong Mark alias Small Shit, Gospel Long John (Jimnas), Saviour Oketeh (Point & Kill), Goodluck Innocent Monday (Small DPO), Kufre Joshua (Lagos Boy), and Victor Frank Akpan (Akpan Prophet).

    Others are Uwakmfon (Owo akan owo), Samuel Udoh Akpan (Exhibit), Victor Sunday (Fine Doctor), Silvia Dickson (Pursue no cash), Etieno
    Joseph Akpan, James Akpan (Armorer), Ebukmfon Okon (Ekpoho), Godknows (Calisto), Emediong, Utomobong Sunday (Small Money), Respect, Owoidohoabsi Ime (Arrow Destroyer), Itorobong Sunday Stephen (Arrow Mopol), and Kingsley Silas (Wise Man).

    They hail from various villages in Ukanafun and Etim Ekpo including Ikot Udobia, Idung Aneke, Ikot Etim, Ododiong, Afaha Abo.

  • 2019: ‘Fight against destroyers of our destiny’

    …….forces of oppression will be repelled – Saraki

    Akwa Ibom state governor, Mr. Udom Emmanuel has said that next year’s general elections, particularly the governorship would not be an ordinary electoral contest but a fight between the people and ‘destiny destroyers’.

    Speaking on Sunday at the Uyo Township Stadium on the occasion of the 31st anniversary celebration of the state, Governor Emmanuel, therefore urged Akwa Ibom people to rise up and fight against some highly placed individuals who want to mortgage the destiny of the state.

    Though he was not explicit on who he referred to as ‘destiny destroyers’ the governor said Akwa Ibom was and will remain a People’s Democratic Party(PDP) state which cannot be subdued by the opposition.

    He said no single individual from the state can play God and get away with it, adding that the gathering of ‘lions and bears’ against of the political destiny of the state would be put to naught in next year’s election.

    “Today Akwa Ibom people have come together and the fight before us is Akwa Ibom destiny and we are taking our destiny in our own hands. We will fight for our destiny. All destiny hijackers we tell them Holy Ghost fire.

    Read Also: FA cup: Gov Udom doles out N70m to Akwa Utd

    “All destiny destroyers we tell them Holy Ghost fire. In Akwa Ibom today we have development coming into Mbo, Ibiono to everywhere. There is nothing like Oro, nothing like Ibibio, nothing like Annang; development cuts across everywhere.

    “If you go to Ibaka road people were dancing; a major economic road was abandoned over the years because of ethnic bigotry. Today what are we saying forward ever, backward never. If they like let the lions and the bears come together. Can they eat up our destiny?

    “The same God of yesterday is the same God today and is the same God of tomorrow. Never again can the destiny of Akwa Ibom be taken over one man who has risen up to pretend that he God. Did Goliath succeed?

    “We shall conquer the beast. No man will sell our destiny; no man will mortgage our destiny; no man will rubbish our destiny. On our destiny we stand; our destiny is built on a solid rock and so shall it stand”, Emmanuel said.

    The governor mentioned the renovation and upgrading of general hospitals in Ituk Mbang, Etinan and Ikono as well as attraction of industries such as Toothpick factory, metering assembly plant, fertilizer blending plant and syringe factory among others.

    Speaking earlier the Senate President, Abubakar Bukola Saraki assured that the PDP would reclaim power from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the federal and state levels.

    Saraki said, “In 2019 the forces of darkness and oppression will repelled across the 36 states of the federation”.

    In attendance at the occasion were the governor of Sokoto state, Alhaji Aminu Tambuwal, Senator Dino Melaye among other PDP chieftains.