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Joe Effiong, Uyo
Elders and stakeholders in Akwa Ibom State have described as laughable the claim by the APC gubernatorial candidate, Mr Nsima Ekere, that he won the election in 26 out of the 31 local government areas of the state during the last election.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that Gov Udom Emmanuel won the highest number of votes including winning in 30 local government areas. But Ekere has rejected the result claiming he won in 26 LGAs.
But stakeholders of the state at a press conference anchored by the former military governor of the state, Air Commodore Idongesit Nkanga (rtd), wondered if such victory was conjured in the dream since realities on the ground show that Akwa Ibom is a PDP state.
Nkanga wondered how APC could have won an election when its candidates did not campaign but waited for the fabled ‘Federal might’ and continued to negotiate with militants from the creeks and thugs from Edo State to come and wreak havoc and disrupted elections in the state.
“While we went to all strata of the society, the church, traders, auto mechanics, the professional class and the informal sectors and persuaded them to vote for our candidates, the other side was busy negotiating with militants to come and be “investors and contractors” in their evil plans to kill and maim our people in order to win election. The people voted for peace over death and violence,” Nkanga said
He relived the tension and palpable fear that had engulfed the otherwise peaceful and serene state; the promise of Armageddon, of ‘Warsaw saw war,’ the importation of thugs from Edo State to inflict violence on the people and cause the election to be cancelled or rendered inconclusive.
“You all heard the audio recordings of the governorship candidate of the APC negotiating with the merchants of death and violence and agreeing on the price needed to execute his evil designs, demanding to know if those purveyors of deaths would operate as “investors or contractors” as if the lives of Akwa Ibom person are so cheap as to be reduced or negotiated away in Naira and Kobo.
“You are all familiar with the much-touted deployment of ‘Federal might’ and that the elections would end in merely three hours.
“This manufactured tension was aimed at causing major voters apathy and apprehension, the strategic imperative being to create a chill in the air and therefore, cause our people to stay at home.
“But you – our dear people refused to be cowed or intimated by their evil and devious machinations and plots; you refused to give in to intimidations; you refused to compromise on the future of our state, our common patrimony; you rose like meteors and voted for peace, security, good governance, the future of your children, the continuous development of our state; you rose and formed an electoral human shield and dared the so-called ‘Federal might’ to break your will. In the end, the much touted ‘Federal might’ wilted and buckled under the ‘People’s might.’ God showed up and proved that only He determines who gets power and who doesn’t.
“Those who boasted of ‘Warsaw saw war,’ suffered the same fate as the man who had commanded the German troops on September 1, 1939, to go to Warsaw, Poland and killed the innocent Jewish people, Adolf Hitler. Like Adolf Hitler who was deserted at the end of his misadventure by the previously fawning generals and now depressed and forlorn in a solitary bunker, committed suicide; those who promised us war were consumed by the tempest of anger of the people who massively turned against their evil designs and rejected them at the polls. Their boasts of ‘Warsaw saw war’ became the symphony of their political suicide.”
The elders thanked the people for trooping out to vote en-masse for Gov Emmanuel whom they described as an instrument God has used to liberate the state, stressing that their will expressed through their votes must be respected.
