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Gov. Akpabio (left) with Mr. Udom Emmanuel …… Can
Udom survive the scandals and the political fire?
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By Nse Peter
The pressure from Governor Godswill Akpabio may have caused
the immediate past Secretary to the Akwa Ibom State Government (SSG), Mr. Udom
Emmanuel to rent a large, uncontrollable crowd that eventually marred the
former SSG’s formal declaration to contest for the 2015 governorship election
in the state, Think Akwa Ibom! has
learned.
A senior executive member of the Akwa Ibom Consolidation
Alliance (ACA) in Uyo who requested that his name should not be mentioned in
the story because of the sensitive nature of the issue told Think Akwa Ibom! that Governor Akpabio
‘instructed’ Udom Emmanuel and ACA to quickly organise the governorship
declaration, and mobilise as much crowd as possible to fill the Uyo Township
Stadium, even when the former SSG and the group wasn’t ready and didn’t have
the capacity for such event.
ACA, the campaign organisation for the governorship ambition
of Mr. Udom Emmanuel, was established by Governor Godswill Akpabio, his wife,
Unoma, and the Commissioner for Housing & Urban Renewal, Barr. Emmanuel
Enoidem, and some few remnants of Akpabio’s loyalists.
Udom Emmanuel’s governorship declaration organised by ACA
last week ended in an embarrassing bloody riot in Uyo, when thousands of
‘rented’ supporters violently marched to the ACA’s secretariat demanding for
payment of their ‘appearance fees’ from the campaign organisation. Two cars
were reportedly burnt down at ACA’s secretariat.
Akpabio wanted to use the ‘massive crowd’ at Udom’s
declaration to dissuade President Goodluck Jonathan and the national leadership
of PDP from believing that the former SSG is unpopular in Akwa Ibom State, the
ACA member revealed to Think Akwa Ibom!
The outcome of the last meeting held two weeks ago between
President Goodluck Jonathan and PDP governors, led by Gov. Godswill Akpabio,
where the president rejected the idea of Akpabio and his governor colleagues
producing their successors, somehow gives credence to the latest revelation
from the ACA member. The President in that meeting bluntly told Akpabio and
other that he wasn’t going to allow them present unpopular persons as PDP
candidates for the 2015 governorship election in their states. (In case you missed the story of President Jonathan's meeting with Gov. Akpabio and other PDP governors, read it here.)
“We were in a fix. We had to choose either to obey Akpabio’s
directive even when we knew we didn’t have the capacity to mobilise the
anticipated large crowd within such a short notice or to refuse the governor’s order
and damn the consequences. And of course, you know it is impossible for Udom or
anyone in ACA to refuse the governor’s order. So, we took the risk of staging
that declaration, and that is why we paid the price,” the ACA member said.
Think Akwa Ibom!
gathered that in a rush to fill the space in the Uyo Township Stadium ACA’s
leadership had conscripted just anyone irrespective of their political belief,
whether they were PDP members or not, to help in the task of mobilization. People
were told before the event to form themselves into groups (20 persons in each
groups), hire buses that would convey them from different parts of Akwa Ibom to
the event ground in Uyo, with a promise that they would get a refund and other
entitlements after the event.
“No, it’s not true that we deceived those who hired buses to
bring people. The crowd was too much for us to handle after the event, and you
know how disorderly people could become after such a big event. … I could admit
that they were some mistakes on our part, but we won’t accept that we deceived or
tricked anybody to be at the stadium for the event,” said the ACA executive member
who argued that it is a tradition anywhere in Nigeria to give out money to
people invited to attend political events.
“If you say that what
we did amounted to renting a crowd, then that means every politician in this
state has been in the business of renting crowd,” he said.
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