PDP primary that produced Akpabio as governor not credible – Gov Emmanuel’s aide

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An aide to Governor Udom Emmanuel has attacked the credibility of the 2006 Peoples Democratic Party primaries that Godswill Akpabio won before he was eventually elected governor in 2007.

Sampson Akpan, the Special Assistant on Media to the Akwa Ibom governor, accused the then chairman of PDP in Akwa Ibom State, Otu Toyo, of conniving with the then assistant secretary, Samuel Akpan, to manipulate the delegates list for the 2006 governorship primaries in favour of Mr. Akpabio.

Mr. Toyo was a guest on Community Views, a live interview programme on Planet 101.1FM radio, Uyo, on Saturday when the governor’s aide phoned in to take on the former PDP chairman for making critical remarks about the governor’s legitimacy following the recent judgment of the Akwa Ibom governorship election tribunal.

Mr. Toyo had said in the interview, “I read with complete confusion the tribunal’s verdict. If you take the thing at face value, I think I agree with what Senator Ita Enang said that if you come to the point where we are now, it shows that our governor did not meet the minimal requirement to have been declared governor in the first place.”

The governor’s aide, Mr. Akpan, in an attempt to discredit Toyo, said of the 2006 Akwa Ibom PDP governorship primaries conducted under Mr. Toyo’s leadership, “Even people that were not accredited members of PDP, some okada riders, were forced into Ibom Hall to nominate the former governor.

“And we are sitting down here, talking as if we are angels when we have not been able to address the foundation that built up the former administration which culminated into what we are suffering today.”

Mr. Akpan advised Mr. Toyo to “come back home and sit on a roundtable” that could help solve the PDP’s problem, otherwise “we will keep washing our dirty linen in the public”.

Mr. Toyo promptly rejected Mr. Akpan’s advice. He also rejected Mr. Akpan’s claims that the 2006 PDP governorship primaries in Akwa Ibom State was rigged in favour of Mr. Akpabio.

“I’ll like to say, in the first instance, if you wash your linen in the street it will become cleaner,” Toyo responded.

He challenged the governor’s aide to show him any publication that could substantiate the claim that the 2007 governorship primaries wasn’t credible.

“If you give me one publication that says that is what was done I will resign from public life.

“I don’t like people who come out and rake up things that are not based on truth. That nomination was largely acclaimed to be free, firm and fair. If we had time, I would tell you the troubles we went through to make sure that delegates came from the wards. It wasn’t even from us. It is now that they write names of delegates. Did you not have delegate election in your ward? Were the names of delegates not published in the party secretariat at your ward two weeks before primaries? So how could thugs go into the election hall? I can’t believe you,” Mr. Toyo said.

The former PDP state chairman said during his leadership, the party was funded by the people, and not the government, and added that that was why they were able to conduct the party primaries without interference from the state government.

Mr. Toyo, who said he hasn’t been invited to PDP meetings for a long while now, however blamed Godswill Akpabio’s administration for the defection of many PDP members to the All Progressives Congress in the state, and also faulted the April 2015 election that produced Udom Emmanuel as the governor of Akwa Ibom State.

“When I left, I left N120 million in the coffers of the party. And then when you come in today and eat up the money we left in the party, eat up the money we left in the government, and then you are the one building houses, you are the one driving many black cars, it will come to a point the people know that you are not with them.

“Anyone who was in Akwa Ibom State in the last election must have been witness to the kind of brigandage, all sort of violence and the usage of security agents. I saw it. And those who pretend that election was normal in Akwa Ibom must have their heads examined,” Mr. Toyo said.

Mr. Toyo described the INEC card reader as the bedrock of the future of Nigerian electorates, and advised the judiciary not to discredit it through their judgments on election petitions.
“All that the card reader is trying to say is that you have a voter’s card, and this card contains a chip that has all your particulars. And this card reader is the only thing that can authenticate that you are the owner of the voter’s card, so that the owner of the card will go to vote with his own card. What is wrong with this?

“The card reader has survived the Executive. It has survived the National Assembly. And now, the judiciary. Because of the corrupt tendencies within the judiciary, (it) wants to cave in and then destroy Nigeria’s march to electoral freedom. We must resist this with everything we have.”