Response from Akwa Ibom govt on the detention of Maj. Gen. Akpan

Yesterday, you read from a LIB reader who said her father was being illegal detained by Akwa Ibom governor Godswill Akpabio (read here). Pastor Anietie John Ukpe, the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor has sent a response to LIB. Read below...

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)