Our attention has been drawn to an article in your blog titled “My Dad is Being Detained by Governor Akpabio” by one Barr. Iniobong Kelia Akpan. It is an obnoxious attempt at salvaging whatever is left of her father’s unsalvageable honor after his willful criminal conduct in abducting election materials and taking 12 National Youth Corps members to his house to rig the Akwa Ibom Gubernatorial election in favour of the All Progressives Congress. Her father, Major General Edet Akpan (rtd) is an APC chieftain.
It is unfortunate
that like her father, Barr Akpan has chosen the path of dishonor in
trying to deceive the public about the incidents which led to her
father’s arrest by law enforcement agencies, and has disingenuously
attempted to deploy blackmail against Governor Godswill Akpabio of Akwa
Ibom
State as an instrument in her propagandistic campaign.
Her lies are pitiful. Whether it is the product of a daughter’s
blind love for an unrighteous father or the dilemma of not knowing how
to rebuke an old man of 74 years, one is not sure. She claims in one
paragraph that her father is 72 and in another that he is 74. Such
inconsistency underscores the incoherence in this shedding of crocodile
tears.
In the early hours of April 11, 2015,
while the Gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections were going on,
there were reports that Major General Edet Akpan, an former NYSC
National Director, had hijacked election materials to his house and the
election was being rigged in his house for him by some corps members. He
got the materials from his unit and two other units, thereby, denying
the people the opportunity to vote. That was why the enraged community
members went to his house and demanded that he
should release the materials to them. This is what his daughter
referred to as a mammoth crowd.
Akwa Ibom
State, partly because of the APC propaganda machine, had been labelled a
potential flashpoint and had an Assistant Inspector General of Police,
two Police Commissioners and scores of director-level staff of the
Department of State Security deployed to the state to provide security
for the exercise. Security agents stormed Major General Edet Akpan’s
house and caught him and the corps members with the election materials
and thumb printed ballot papers red-handed.
Governor
Akpabio as the chief security officer of the state was interested in
ensuring that there were no breaches or hitches in the exercise. He does
not tell security agencies how to do their jobs and whatever steps the
security agencies take when a crime has been committed, as in the
instant case, is usually determined by the outcome of
their investigations and their application of the laws.
One
is surprised that as a lawyer, Barr. Akpan does not know how to seek
redress and would instead of going to court to show cause why her father
should be released, come to Linda Ikeji’s blog to tell a cock-and-bull
story. She, perhaps, knows that this ridiculous fiction would not stand
up to courtroom scrutiny.
Consider this, “My
dad, Maj. Gen. E. Akpan (rtd) had gone out to vote in his polling unit,
when he got back he met a mammoth crowd in his compound. The Corpers who
were amongst the crowd explained to him that they had nowhere else to
run to with the ballot materials and that Godswill Akpabio's thugs were
on a rampage hijacking ballot boxes in all the local governments and
carting them away to Akpabio in Government house, so they needed to run
away with the ones in their possession for safe keeping and that they
felt my father's compound
was the safest place to bring them too till the thugs go away.”
Posers:
If your dad went out and voted peacefully in his unit and got back (as
admitted by you), from which unit did the corps members come from? How
do you explain the presence of the mammoth crowd – except that they came
there to insist that the election materials should be returned for them
to vote? Why would they feel that the House of a partisan APC
chieftain who was a frequent visitor to INEC to speak on behalf of APC
was the safest place for them? How come the ballot boxes in the unit
where your dad went to vote were not carted away – given your claim that
there were hijacked all over the state? Why didn’t the corps members
report at the police station? Where were the policemen sent to provide
security for the INEC staff and the corps members? Why did the corps
members not call the security or help lines given to all of them to call
in cases of security breaches?
There are more questions but one believes that these would surfice.
Barr
Akpan is involved in fool’s gambit by searching for ghosts where they
are none. Governor Akpabio has never witchhunted anyone and, certainly,
has never harbored any ill-will towards Major General Akpan (Retd). What
Barr Akpan provides as the motive in her jaundiced view for Governor
Akpabio to order the arrest of her father is nonsensical, “He cannot
stand a right standing citizen like my father because it makes him look
bad which he is!”
There are so many right standing citizens
in Akwa Ibom State, who do not rig elections nor commit crime, and they
are a pride to the state and the Government. How come these have not
been arrested? Why would the security agencies arrest a man simply
because he is right standing and his right standing makes the Governor
look bad! Absolutely childish talk!!!
Let Barr Akpan and the
general public be informed that
Governor Akpabio had thanked the security agencies and INEC for
collaborating to conduct free and fair elections in Akwa Ibom State and
had commended them for stopping breaches such as the one in Gen Akpan’s
house. Beyond that, Governor Akpabio has no interest of any kind in the
case of Major General Akpan. He regrets that a man who ought to be a
role model and who was a Director of the NYSC could descend so low as to
involve in criminal conduct in such an important national exercise.
The
Akpabio administration has never been found wanting in its commitment
to the security of the lives and properties of the good people of Akwa
Ibom state. It is unfortunate that the people who are involved in
thuggery, killings and kidnapping would turn around and blame the
administration for such things in order to hide their trails. One would
have expected a woman who claims to be a lawyer to know better than to
make such unwholesome
allegations against honorable men who have distinguished themselves in
the global arena and received global plaudits for integrity, good
conscience, visionary leadership and transformational governance. Barr
Akpan is advised to show more decorum in her public commentaries and not
cry wolf where there is none.
By Pastor Anietie John Ukpe (Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Akwa Ibom)
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