I Have No Pact With Anybody On 2023 – Gov Emmanuel

UYO

Akwa Ibom governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel, has denied any agreement purportedly reached in 2015 to hand over to Senator Bassey Albert Akpan in 2023.

Emmanuel was reacting to claims by his former chief of staff, Mr Ephraim Inyangeyen, that there was an existing political accord to cede the governorship position to Senator Akpan next year.

Special assistant to the Governor on Research and Documentation, Mr Essien Ndueso, in a radio programme monitored by our correspondent in Uyo, described Inyang-eyen’s claim as laughable and fictitious.

Ndueso said the election of Governor Emmanuel in 2015 came after the people had unanimously agreed that whether by zoning or rotation, the political authority of the state from 2015-2023 should reside in Eket Senatorial District.

He wondered how Senator Akpan could have stepped down for Governor Emmanuel in a race he was never qualified to contest.

Put differently, the ambition was not only invidious and unholy, it was not qualified at all. In law, if you build without licence, when the property is pulled down, you are not entitled to any compensation. Trite law!

“Senator Akpan was at the time the commissioner for finance and was part of the state delegation led by the then Governor Godswill Akpabio that toured federal constituencies in the state through town hall meetings.

“He witnessed general opinions of traditional and religious clerics, business and political classes, traders and artisans, women and youth leaders, and the consensus was that power should shift, rotate or be zoned to Eket Senatorial District in 2015.”

Ndueso also took a swipe at the allegation of poor reward system as peddled by the former commissioner for works. He said Senator Akpan negotiated and got a Senate ticket ahead of his kinsman, Senator Ita Enang, in 2015 and got returned to the Senate in 2019, still another case of reward, and wondered why a person who had been appointed finance commissioner for seven and a half years and Senator for another eight years, should complain of not being adequately rewarded.