I do not support Akpabio, says YPP candidate

A contender for the Akwa Ibom North-West senatorial seat on the Young Progressives Party platform, Emmanuel Ekon, has debunked insinuations that he supports All Progressives Congress candidate Senator Godswill Akpabio.

The former member of the House of Representatives for the federal constituency of Abak said on Sunday in Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom state, that the rumor was a “deliberately orchestrated propaganda by agitators with malicious intent to engulf the ranks of my teeming supporters across the 10 local government areas of Akwa Ibom North-West.”

The former chairman of the Local Content Committee in the Ninth National Assembly noted that “the main target of the purveyors of such infantile and baseless lies are my competitors who fear my skyrocketing popularity among the voters.”

While urging his teeming supporters to “ignore the cheap lies designed to once again rob the Abak Federal Constituency of its long and overdue 2023 right,” Ekon recalled that over the years the slot had only been rotated between the Ikot Ekpene, Ukanafun/Oruk and Ikono/Ini federal constituencies, leaving the zone he described as Abak-3, made up of Abak, Etim Ekpo and Ika LGAs, wallowing in wanton underdevelopment, infrastructural decay and youth unemployment.”

He added: ‘I and Godswill Akpabio do not belong to the same party. Godswill is a member of the APC, from Essien Udim LGA in Ikot Ekpene federal constituency. By the grace of God, I am a candidate of the YPP, from Etim Ekpo, in the federal constituency of Abak. My main mission is to return to the Red Room to address the injustices that have been wrought in the zone over several years.

“I thank God for Chief Don Etiebet, he is a member of the Board of Trustees of the APC, from Ukanafun/Oruk Anam federal constituency. He told Akpabio to leave this match for Abak-3 contenders only, for the sake of justice, fairness and fair play, but he (Godswill) remains adamant even if it was clear that former Deputy Inspector General Udom Ekpoudom, my kinsman from Etim Ekpo LGA, was about to get the ticket.

“I urge stakeholders, elders, leaders and youth, including all eligible voters from the zone, to rise up against this blatant impunity and injustice against a people who over the years had walked the path of honor elected to wait this number of years. That is why we must take up the fight to correct this anomaly with our permanent voter cards, starting with the presidential and national assembly elections on February 25.