A cleric has advised Governor Umo Eno of Akwa Ibom State to discard his ambition to control the APC and PDP, the two major political parties in the state.
The cleric, Nyeneime Andy, gave the advice via a Facebook post on Thursday, 2 October.
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“Dear Governor Umo Eno, you know me and I have much respect for you, first as a colleague in ministry and secondly as my governor. But I speak the truth. You cannot control two parties at the same time,” said Mr Andy, the lead pastor at Holy Ghost Ambassadors Ministry International, Abuja.
Mr Andy was made the chairperson of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) in Akwa Ibom in February 2022, shortly before Bassey Albert, then an influential senator in Akwa Ibom, defected from the PDP to the YPP, where he got the party’s governorship ticket.
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The former senator, popularly known as OBA in Akwa Ibom, failed to win the 2023 governorship election. In January 2024, he defected to the APC. Mr Andy resigned as the YPP chairperson in Akwa Ibom and defected to the APC.
“You have to choose, either you are the party leader of the APC and relinquish the PDP, or be ready to face being dragged into the mud.
“You have to face it, you as a person did not have any political structure, you were riding on some other person’s structure. It’s time to build your own structure. I mean your own that will be loyal to you,” Mr Andy said to Governor Eno in the Facebook post.
Mr Andy told Mr Eno not to be afraid to “step on toes”, and should get ready for betrayal and hurts from people he assumed are on his side.
He told the governor to advise the sacked PDP chairperson in Akwa Ibom, Aniekan Akpan, to “gladly” join the APC instead of wanting to stay back in the PDP.
Apparently enabled by Governor Eno, who has vowed to control the PDP to ward off strong opposition, Mr Akpan and other officials at the state level have refused to vacate office after the party national leadership sacked them for their continued loyalty to Mr Eno after the governor’s defection from the PDP to the APC in June.
“Reward him (Aniekan Akpan) for his loyalty but get ready to build your own structure. This is now politics, and not ministry. In ministry, you expect members of your church to be loyal but in politics, it is different. You work for it and gain loyalty based on your workings,” the pastor said to Governor Eno.
Mr Andy also advised Mr Akpan to save his integrity and move to the APC instead of fighting others in the PDP.
“You can’t be in the APC and in the PDP at the same time. Even I will not tolerate that. The moment you handed over your candidate or governor to the APC, you have no business in the PDP again. In leadership, that is compromise and it cannot be tolerated. That’s the second time, you ate your cake and you can’t still have it,” he said.
“In retrospect, when OBA was moving to APC, I handed him over to the Senate President, Senator Godswill Akpabio, and the next day, I put in my resignation. My tenure did not elapse constitutionally, but I had to step aside.
“It is called integrity. I stood with my candidate Senator Bassey Albert to the end. I would have been selfish to attempt to control YPP as the state chairman and still be part of the APC,” Mr Andy said.
Eno moves against predecessor
Governor Eno recently moved against his predecessor, Udom Emmanuel, and ordered the police to withdraw his security after the PDP National Working Committee dissolved the party’s state executive council in Akwa Ibom and constituted a caretaker committee to run the party’s affairs.
READ ALSO: Contrary to facts, Akwa Ibom govt dismisses withdrawal of ex-Gov Emmanuel’s security as ‘rumour’
Although Mr Eno has repeatedly vowed never to “fight” his predecessor, the cracks widen as the 2027 elections approach.
Ndianaabasi Udom, an aide to Governor Eno, resigned from his appointment with the Akwa Ibom State Rural Access Roads Agency on 30 September to join the newly constituted PDP caretaker committee in the state, causing panic across the APC-led government.
Two days later, the governor announced the dissolution of statutory and non-statutory boards and commissions in the state. Hours later, several of Mr Eno’s aides and some politicians took to Facebook to pledge their loyalty to the governor and the APC.
“Akwa Ibom is an APC state,” Mr Eno told a crowd of supporters who came out to receive him at the Victor Attah International Airport, Uyo, on Friday.
“You must say this loud and clear, you must be proud to belong to the centre, you must be proud to receive the support of the centre. So, now, it is time for you to show and to wear our badge of honour very proudly – that you are an APC member.”
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