The Inspector General of Police, Ibrahim Idris, has reportedly invited the officials of Governor Udom Emmanuel’s campaign team to Abuja for questioning because of squabble over campaign billboard in the state.
The Commissioner for Information in the state, Charles Udoh, disclosed the development in a message he sent out on Thursday.
Mr Emmanuel’s party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), together with the Akwa Ibom state government, have been engaged in a battle of wits with the leadership and supporters of the opposition All Progressives Congress (APC) over the hoisting of a campaign billboard in a popular market in Uyo.
Those reportedly invited to Abuja for questioning, according to Mr Udoh, are a former governor of the state, Idongesit Nkanga, who heads Divine Mandate, a campaign organisation of Governor Emmanuel; Paul Ekpo, the PDP chairman in the state; Onofiok Luke, the Speaker, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly; and Iniobong Essien, the Commissioner for Environment in the state.
Fubara Duke, a security aide to the governor; Imoh Okon, the chairman of Uyo Local Government Area; and the chairman of Uyo Market Association are among those also said to have been invited by the police chief.
The commissioner said Mr Nkanga and others were invited by the police based on a petition from the chairman of APC in the state, Ini Okopido, to President Muhammadu Buhari and the IGP.
The message from the commissioner also quoted an unnamed official of the state government as saying, “A security agency established by law has invited us so we have to honour.
“We obey laws here. It started with the billboard issue and the IGP sent a team from Abuja that investigated and even detained the Commissioner for Environment for no just cause.
“Is this their concept to intimidate and take over Akwa Ibom State that they have been orchestrating and boasting about? Acceptability is at the polls. Let’s go there. We are ready.”
The message said the official spoke at Akwa Ibom International Airport, Uyo, before he and others (invited) boarded an aircraft to Abuja.
“The APC conducted their governorship primaries in this State and three persons were killed, no petitions, no investigations, no arrest, no prosecution. As a fallout from the primaries, a police station was burnt in Okobo Local Government Area, and other sundry but weighty infractions, yet the police looked at the left and ignored the incidences at the right even with photo evidence and outcries,” the official was quoted as saying further.
The Commissioner for Environment in the state, Mr Essien, was recently arrested and detained briefly at the police headquarters in the state for allegedly preventing the APC from erecting a billboard for President Buhari.
The APC, through its state chairman, Ini Okopido, told PREMIUM TIMES they had paid for and gotten approval for the spot where a billboard for President Buhari was to be hoisted, only for the PDP-controlled state government to prevent them, and then wanted to hastily erect a billboard for their party’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on the exact spot.
“The approved location of the billboard was several meters away from the main thoroughfare of the market. Instead of restricting themselves to the point approved for them, they erected the billboard at a place most unfit for such and in flagrant contravention of environmental regulations,” the PDP spokesperson in the state, Ini Ememobong, had said of the controversy.
Meanwhile, a Government House source in Uyo told TheNiche on Thursday that Governor Emmanuel has elected to lead his team of Campaign Coordinators to the Inspector General of Police.
According to him, “All the persons invited by the Inspector General of Police curiously are the key officers of Udom Emmanuel Divine Mandate Organisation, the vehicle for Udom’s reaction.”
“A security agency established by law has invited us so we have to honour. We obey laws here. It started with the billboard issue and the IGP sent a team from Abuja that investigated and even detained the Commissioner for Environment for no just cause. Is this their concept to intimidate and take over Akwa Ibom State that they have been orchestrating and boasting about? Acceptability is at the polls. Let’s go there. We are ready,” a ranking government official in the State said before they boarded an aircraft to Abuja.
“The APC conducted their governorship primaries in this State and three persons were killed, no petitions, no investigations, no arrest, no prosecution. As a fallout from the primaries, a police station was burnt in Okobo Local Government Area, and other sundry but weighty infractions, yet the police looked at the left and ignored the incidences at the right even with photo evidence and outcries,” he said.
