Sunny Ibanga reportedly warns: Don’t campaign in Ikot Ekpene if you are against Akpabio’s succession plan

Governor Godswill Akpabio

By Nse Peter

The Chapter chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ikot Ekpene Local Government Area, Chief Sunny Ibanga has warned other politicians who are not in support of Akpabio’s succession plan for the 2015 governorship election in the state not to visit Ikot Ekpene for campaign, Peace Letters has reported.

Peace Letter, a pro-government community newspaper in Akwa Ibom State, reports in its Vol. 2. No. 25 edition of Tuesday, September 16, 2014 that Chief Sunny Ibanga issued the warning while he was addressing some politicians in Ikot Ekpene recently.
 
The paper said the chapter chairman viewed it as an act of disloyalty and disrespect to Godswill Akpabio for politicians in Ikot Ekpene to bring governorship aspirants for consultation in the area because, according him, the governor hails from there.

Sunny Ibanga reportedly asked that politicians in the area should first seek for the governor’s approval before bringing in any governorship aspirant for political consultation in Ikot Ekpene.

“The governor is from Ikot Ekpene Federal Constituency and we will stand by him to produce a successor. Ikot Ekpene is not a free for all political environment,” Peace Letters quoted Chief Sunny Ibanga as having said.  

It could be recalled that Chief Sunny Ibanga’s name had featured prominently in the media reports of the March 2011 political violence that claimed several lives in Ikot Ekpene when supporters of both PDP and the then Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) clashed in the area. A news report in the Vanguard said the then chairman of ACN in the state, Mr. Aniekan Akpan had accused Sunny Ibanga as being one of the sponsors of the alleged attack of ACN supporters during the mayhem in Ikot Ekpene.