BEVERLY HILLS, May 25, (THEWILL) – The Akwa Ibom State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) says the Governor and its leader, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, has no plans whatsoever to defect to the ruling party at the centre, the All Progressives Congress (APC).
PDP, which was reacting to the wild rumours making the rounds that Emmanuel might likely be nursing intentions to toe the line of his counterpart in the neighbouring Cross River State, Mr. Ben Ayade, said such defection talks were targeted at misleading Akwa Ibom people and causing unnecessary some agitation in the polity.
The party’s reaction was contained in a press release endorsed by its Publicity Secretary, Mr. Borono Bassey, and made available to THEWILL in Uyo on Tuesday.
The release said: “As a party, we wish to affirm that His Excellency, Mr. Udom Emmanuel, a leader with a towering record of integrity and performance, remains a very committed and dutiful leader of the Peoples Democratic Party in Akwa Ibom State.
“We submit that for a Governor, whose support base across all strata of the party is unshakeable as the famed Rock of Gibraltar, we cannot conceive the faintest of reasons why Governor Emmanuel would contemplate any form of movement, even in thoughts, from the PDP, whose values and ideological leaning resonates with his total development and leadership agenda.
“What is clear however from these rumours is that the APC, who are the principal shareholders in this rumour mills, are desirous of having the focused, visionary and performing Chief Executive of Akwa Ibom State cross over to their sinking boat, perhaps in the hope that his arrival could be the salvation that has for so long eluded them.”
The statement said that the Governor could not in all good conscience plunge the state into any affiliation with APC.
It regretted the fact that the propaganda was making its way into the public domain at a time when Emmanuel was busy inaugurating life-touching projects around the state as part of his pursuit of the Completion Agenda and to mark the sixth anniversary of his outstanding leadership performance in the state.
The PDP chapter said: “As a party, we reiterate that no performing PDP Governor would leave our party to join a party that has visited untold hardship on Nigerians.
“We urge our people to disregard such rumours or at best regard them as the manifestations of the thought process results of people who do not wish Akwa Ibom State well.”
