Full text of address presented by Umana during meeting of Akwa Ibom leaders with Buhari

An address presented by a delegation of Akwa Ibom State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to the President–elect, General Muhammadu Buhari (GCFR) on the occasion of a congratulatory visit to the President-elect in Abuja on 7 May 2015. (Continue reading, after the cut........)

Protocols

Your Excellency, Mr. President-elect,

It is with great delight that we, representatives of the Akwa Ibom State Chapter of our great Party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), as well as elders and leaders of the state, are here to congratulate you, Your Excellency, on behalf of your teeming supporters in the state, on your hard-earned and well-deserved victory in the Presidential Election of 28 March 2015. Also on behalf of the State Working Committee of our Party and all your supporters in Akwa Ibom State, we wish you God’s guidance and a very successful tenure as you assume the office of President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces on 29 May 2015.
We want to assure you, Mr. President-elect, that our people are solidly behind you and will stand by you all the way to the end. Their steadfast support for you and our great Party was made plain during the electioneering as our campaign train toured every nook and cranny of the state and witnessed firsthand the yearnings of our people for change promised by the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The desire of our people for change was a natural outpouring of their disappointment with and neglect by the PDP-controlled Federal Government for 16 years, during which there was no federal presence in the state. Even the much talked about East-West Road could not be completed in those long years.
During the campaigns, the people also complained of gross under-representation in federal appointments, even in the oil industry, where the state leads in crude oil and gas production.
Your Excellency, while mentioning some of the developmental challenges facing our state, we would like to request that the Ibaka Deep Seaport should be treated as a priority project and completed by your administration to help ease the problem of unemployment facing youths in the state and the country at large.
The people had hoped that there would be free and fair elections in Akwa Ibom State for them to vote and bring in APC government at both the state and federal levels, so that the lot of the people of the state would change for the better.
However, it is a matter for regret and a point of great frustration that our votes for you in Akwa Ibom State were not allowed to count during the Presidential Election because of massive vote fraud and wanton violence.
Your Excellency, we would like to report that the Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections held in the state on 11 April 2015 witnessed even worse degrees of electoral fraud and violence, leading to many deaths and injuries. All the violence and electoral malpractices were perpetrated by a private army set up and funded by the state governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio. When we got wind of the formation of the Akpabio private army many months before the elections, we raised a red flag and petitioned appropriate authorities, but no action was taken to dismantle the machine of death and destruction put in place by the state governor.
We are a bit mollified that the incidents of widespread electoral malpractices and bloody violence that marred the purported elections in our state have been amply confirmed by independent local and international monitors, including the Civil Liberties Organisations, the Akwa Ibom State Caucus at the National Assembly, the African Union Election Monitoring Team, the European Union Election Monitoring Group, the US Government, represented by its embassy in Nigeria and many elders of the state, including His Excellency, former Governor Obong Victor Attah and former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Atuekong Don Etiebet, CON. Such reports go a long way to confirm our stand that there were no valid elections in Akwa Ibom State.
Your Excellency, we are pleased to inform you that we have challenged the outcome of the purported elections at the Tribunals. It may interest you, Sir, to know also that figures declared in the elections by the Akwa Ibom State INEC office were at variance significantly with figures captured by card readers and transmitted to INEC database in the Commission office in Abuja. For instance, data obtained from INEC head office in Abuja show that the total number of accredited voters captured by card readers for the gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections in Akwa Ibom State was 437,128, but the figure declared by the state INEC office was 1,122,836. By INEC guidelines, use of the card reader was mandatory in the gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections.
Your position on electoral reform is therefore apt, and we wish to commend you on your determination to reform and reposition the electoral process to make elections more credible in Nigeria.
With specific reference to the manifold cases of violence and bloodshed that rocked our state before and during the general elections, we demand justice for the families of those who were killed and maimed. We also hope that those who masterminded those crimes of electoral violence and fraud would not be allowed to escape justice.
Your Excellency, we hereby pledge to wholly cooperate with and remain loyal to your government, while fully committing everything at our disposal, including the best of our talents, to the success of your administration.
Once again, congratulations, Sir.

Mr. Umana Okon Umana
On behalf of All Progressives Congress
Akwa Ibom State