The Young Progressives Party (YPP), in Akwa Ibom State has accused Governor Udom Emmanuel of arbitrary use of state funds to sponsor Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) campaigns in the state.
This was part of issues addressed by the party in a Press Conference on Saturday January 7, 2023, in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital.
Apostle Nyenime Andy, Chairman of the YPP in Akwa Ibom reeled out the party’s fears ahead of the 2023 elections to also include an alleged unholy alliance between the ruling PDP and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials, a situation which he said, requires urgent explanation from the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state.
The 2023 Governorship election in Akwa Ibom State has in the last five months turned out to be a two-horse race between Pastor Umo Eno of the PDP and Senator Bassey Albert of the YPP.
The full text of the YPP press conference is presented below.
GENTLEMEN OF THE PRESS
We are grateful to the Almighty God for granting us all good health to live and transit into the New Year – 2023. It is a year that we have long hoped for the very best for ourselves and our State – Akwa Ibom State through the enthronement of a leader who will be responsive to the needs of the people; a leader who will understand the pains of workers and retirees to pay their benefits on time and provide basic social amenities in the society. It is a year that we also look forward to having an administration that will not keep the people in starvation, oppression, and segregation. Our party therefore wishes you all a happy, prosperous, and fulfilling 2023!
As you are all aware, the Nigerian nation, with Akwa Ibom State inclusive, is at the verge of conducting general elections – beginning with the Presidential/National Assembly on February 25, 2023, and then the Governorship/State Houses of Assembly on March 11, 2023. It is a very important trajectory for the States and Nation as the upcoming elections will birth another cycle of leadership. For emphasis, good leadership makes for the growth of a society at all levels. Once you get it right with someone who is competent; someone who is people-oriented and development focused, then expectations are bound to be met.
The period therefore becomes very engaging not only for the politicians, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the security agencies but for all Nigerians as well. What is fundamentally demanding is to ensure that our democratic processes are not encumbered by whatever factors. The hope of all is that at the end of every election; the polls’ outcome reflects the will of the electorate – nothing more, nothing less.
In the character of our constitutional democracy, the rule of law is pre-eminent, as it guarantees the citizens unfettered rights to freely elect their leaders in a congenial atmosphere. In this wise, multi-party system, as a feature of our constitution, has remained integral in our political culture, even when we hitherto practised parliamentary system of government.
At all times therefore, democracy enjoins mass participation, freedom to belong to any political party and the right to support anyone aspiring for any elective office without let or hindrance. Hence, democracy is domiciled with the people. As the dictum states, “Democracy is government of the people, by the people and for the people.” This entails campaigns for electoral support by political parties and their candidates. They go to the people where the power (effectively) resides and is derivable. The people are bound to give it, not through coercion, but by their votes cast at the polls.
Gentlemen of the Press, sadly, this time-honoured principle of electoral freedom and fair play is under great threat in Akwa Ibom State. Governor Udom Emmanuel-led administration has set in motion a process to pervert democracy in Akwa Ibom State – all in a bid to foist his stooge, Pastor Umo Eno on the people. It is on this premise that we consider it quite urgent to interface with you all, towards alerting the people of Akwa Ibom State, the Nigerian nation nay the world at large, of the manifesting acts of desperation and outright dictatorship by the regime.
At a New Year Get-together with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Wednesday, January 4, 2023, Governor UDOM Emmanuel donated 31 Hiace Buses, costing well over N1.24billion to State PDP for Pastor Umo Eno Campaigns. Was the amount used in the purchase of the buses appropriated for and approved by the State House of Assembly? Does the state government have the right to be using public and tax payers’ money to fund a single political party?
Before now, the State Government through its contractors have donated Bullet Proof Cars and SUVs to Pastor Umo Eno even when he was still the Commissioner for Lands and Water Resources. Let us put this side by side with the recent court case involving Senator Bassey Albert Akpan with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC). Wasn’t he charged for receiving unsolicited car gifts, even after leaving office as Commissioner for Finance, in aid of his gubernatorial campaigns in 2015? If OBA attracted a law suit for receiving Cars after leaving office, what about Umo Eno who received while in office? What is the difference now? Can’t we see therefore that OBA’s case was politically motivated?
Again, Governor Udom Emmanuel at the Get-together with his party at the state headquarters at Atan Offot, Uyo, announced the engagement of 70 agents in each polling units across the 31 Local Government Areas of the State on a monthly stipend of N100,000 to each. With the 4,354 polling units that we have in Akwa Ibom, the cost implication of hiring those agents is N91,334 billion (January – March). Isn’t this alarming? Was this amount of money appropriated for in the budget of 2023? Isn’t the Governor aware that he has no right whatsoever to expend such huge state funds for his party’s affairs? Governor Udom Emmanuel led administration should know that the funds of Akwa Ibom State does not belong to his party – the PDP but the people in its entirety. It therefore amounts to favouritism and outright abuse of office to channel the resources of the state in the pursuit of personal interest. What he has just done by using State Government funds to purchase vehicles for his party and his preferred candidate is criminally liable. We accordingly wish to draw the attention of security agencies to this malfeasance.
Again, is it not shocking that a State that has been feigning lack of funds to pay gratuities to next of kin of late Primary Schools’ teachers and retired public servants will suddenly earmark N91,334 billion from public funds to pay PDP stalwarts? Is this the way to utilize the proceeds of the 13 % Derivation Refunds and other accruals from the Federal Government and other sundry sources – for which the citizens have been demanding accountability? Throughout the state, there are several uncompleted road works and other abandoned infrastructures in need of funding, yet the administration has ignored these. We therefore urged him to rather use the funds to invest in positive development and not for political profligacy. The Umo Eno’s succession bid is unacceptable as Akwa Ibom people have boldly stated since January 2022 when he was unveiled. Politics is not a do a die or die affair.
Another disturbing issue is the state government’s interference in the processes towards 2023 elections. We say so because we have received credible intelligence that Governor Udom Emmanuel–led administration through agents of the state and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), have engaged in buying of Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) from unsuspecting members of the public across the 31 Local Government Areas. They are also obtaining at least 50 VIN numbers from voters across all the 4,354 polling units in Akwa Ibom State. These emerging sharp practices reportedly go on through heavy financial inducement of the largely poor people who have been impoverished by the administration since 2015.
Furthermore, intelligence also revealed that some Local Government Offices of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have been relocated to apartments of the State Government on the guise of renovations. This started soon after the collections of PVCs were announced by INEC. More worrisome also is that across the local government areas, PDP buses are seen ferrying INEC’s officials for the distribution of PVCs. What does this portend? Is this not an open statement of collusion between PDP and INEC?
We are also reliably informed that state government’s ICT experts hobnob with some officials of the State INEC at Monty Suites at Nsikak Eduok Avenue owned by the Commissioner for Youths and Sports, Rt. Hon. Monday Uko and Signature By Royalty Hotels, Ewet Housing Estate, Uyo, owned by the PDP’s Gubernatorial Candidate, Pastor Umo Bassey Eno. Is the state administration now part of INEC? We therefore seek urgent explanation from the State Resident Electoral Commissioner of INEC over these unpalatable developments and call on the Police and the Department of State Services (DSS) to carry out detailed investigations and bring offenders to book.
The Young Progressives Party emphatically call for total compliance to transparency on the processes preceding the conduct of polls to ensure that nobody or any institutions, including the Udom Emmanuel–led administration, are allowed to circumvent, or disenfranchise the electorate. Election can only be seen to be successful and acceptable only when it is free, fair and transparent; before, during and after the polls.
The renewed hope of Nigerians is on the constant assurances given by the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu that the forthcoming elections will be free and fair and that with the services of Bimodal Voter Registration Systems (BVAS), there will be no manipulation. While we may not want to doubt his assurances, the ongoing development of open connivance of some officials of INEC with agents of Akwa Ibom State government has given us cause to be suspicious. Why is the state government through its agents procuring PVCs and VIN Numbers? What is the partnership between government’s ICT agents and some INEC’s ICT staffers in the hotels of PDP’s gubernatorial candidate and party chieftain?
The electorate in Akwa Ibom State want satisfactory answers to these worrisome and undemocratic trends which are capable of not only causing mayhem in the state but circumventing our electoral processes. The Department of State Services (DSS), the Nigeria Police Force, Directorate of Military Intelligence (DMI) and other security agencies of the Federal Government and the international community should beam appropriate searchlights on Akwa Ibom State to forestall possible breakdown of law and order based on the unfolding evil desperation by agents of the state government.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and security agencies have the power to reprimand the state administration from assuming unilateral powers in the state to decide for the people who to govern them. Such open desperation completely offends our electoral laws and should attract appropriate sanctions. The law is not a respecter of persons. Ours cannot be an exception. Those plotting evil against smooth electoral system in the forthcoming elections should be sanctioned.
We wish to recall that before the end of last year – 2022, we also alerted the public, following credible intelligence, of planned crackdown on YPP’s officials and others within our various campaign structures by agents of the state government. But by the grace of God, their evil schemes were averted. However, we cannot still sleep with our two eyes closed.
That the Young Progressives Party (YPP) has become the fastest growing party in Akwa Ibom State with unparalleled massive acceptability has given nightmares to the state administration. The Thursday, December 29, 2022, episode wherein the great people of Akwa Ibom State gave Senator Bassey Albert Akpan (OBA), CON, unprecedented reception upon his release from Ikot Ekpene Correctional Centre, was quite evidential that he is the one they want as their Governor, come May 29, 2023.
As was openly seen, men, women, youths and children, came out in great numbers to the Custodial Centre on that fateful day while others lined the routes to Uyo, with many others gathering at the Senator Bassey Albert Multi-Purpose Recreational Centre, Ifa Ikot Akpan, along Airport Way, to give him a heroic welcome following the granting of bail by the Federal High Court in Port Harcourt, Rivers State. The massive reception also demonstrated people’s disapproval of the unjust and politically motivated conviction by the Justice Agatha Okeke’s Federal High Court in Uyo on December 1, 2022 over unsustainable sundry charges by the Economic and Financial Crime Commission (EFCC).
We make bold to reiterate that it is absolutely the rights of the people of Akwa Ibom State to decide who to back in an election and not the state determining (for us) our choices. Perhaps, we can state for the umpteenth time that Senator Bassey Albert Akpan contesting the forthcoming election through the infinite power of God who is him to establish Himself decidedly at the polls. Let no man therefore think he can overturn the will of God. The scripture says, “Who is he that saith, and it cometh to pass, when the Lord commandeth it not? – Leviticus 3: 37.
As a party, we are not resting on our oars. As the year ended, we successfully carried out our ward-to-ward campaigns in 30 Local Government Areas and we will soon commence the second phase. Our acceptability across Akwa Ibom State is exceedingly phenomenal. As you all know, we fielded well certified candidates who have been tested and trusted in their previous and current positions of responsibilities. More so, our candidates, in line with the manifesto and guiding principles of our party, are armed with lofty programmes to bring about positive impacts in the state once elected.
We cannot be canvassing for votes legitimately from the people, while Governor Udom Emmanuel led – administration is rather plotting to manipulate the elections.
We call on the administration to concentrate on providing good governance for the period left it in power rather than chasing an illusory third term through the imposition of Pastor Umoh Eno. We can recall the Governor’s famous statement made on August 24, 2020, which was widely published as follows: “I’m not like other former Governors. I’ll never go for a third term through surrogacy. I’m not interested on who succeeds me as the next Governor of Akwa Ibom State. When my tenure comes to an end, I’ll leave the Government House with just my Laptop.” Let the governor keep to his words and not capitulate for whatever reason. It will be dishonourable to do otherwise. He has the moral burden to keep to his words. Who will govern Akwa Ibom State is the sole right of the people and that is what is expected on Saturday, March 11, 2023.
Once again, we thank you all for your rapt attention. God bless us all. Happy New Year!
Long live Young Progressives Party, Akwa Ibom State!
Long live Akwa Ibom State!!
Long live the Federal Republic of Nigeria!!!
Apostle (Dr.) Nyeneime Andy
Chairman,
Young Progressives Party (YPP), Akwa Ibom State.
