By Isaac Job
The governorship aspirant on the platform of All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom, Prof. Chris Ekong, said he has swallowed the defeat from the party gubernatorial primaries and pulled resources for the success of Obong Akan Udofia in the 2023 general election.
Addressing a press conference in Uyo on Tuesday, Ekong observed that APC had suffered several defeats in the past because leaders holding on to their ego refused to acknowledge party supremacy causing them to lose to PDP at different times in the state. He said the decision to support the winner of the gubernatorial primaries in the state was in the interest of the party.
He maintained that the conduct of the party primaries was free, fair and credible for every aspirant to accept adding that the parallel attitude of party chieftains in the past was the cause of losing the state to PDP for many years. He listed unforgiving spirit, greed, self-centredness and vendetta as characteristics of party chieftains that worked against their success adding it will never happen in 2023.
He observed that some chieftains frustrated the party in the past and run to Abuja to negotiate appointments only to return after four years in another election season leaving supporters in the lurch.
“They are deliberately setting it on course, to grapple with the destiny of the party; and themselves, remaining some serial political entrepreneurs whose traditional stock-in-trade is to trade the fortunes of the party for their personal and vaulted gains.”
Ekong, a renowned professor of Economics, noted that APC had suffered defeats from 2011 in the days of Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) to 2019 as those defeats were caused by inflexibility of political gladiators who contested with bitterness that gingered them not to accept the choice of party men except such decision were taken in their favour. He said the uncompromising clash of the beneficiary stakeholders had over the years robbed the party of success at the polls in the state and had totally weakened the party’s ability to help maintain her teeming members, supporters and admirers who always bear the brunt of these stakeholder’s covetous attitude.
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“After killing the aspirations and yearnings of serious party members to win elections in the State, these covetous stakeholders run to Abuja to buy themselves and cronies into various national appointments.
“Once they land the Abuja appointments with the 20percent votes they milked from the impoverished and famished party members, they will only return after 4 years to contest another election with the intention to repeat the same cycle.”
He said his participation in the governorship race was with a clear vision committed to return Akwa Ibom to her greatness through APC and nothing can stop it. He, therefore, enjoined all delegates and supporters to join him in the move to support the winning candidate and prepare for 2023 general election in the state.
