The Senator representing Akwa Ibom North West (Ikot Ekpene) senatorial district in the National Assembly, Senator Aloysius Etok has again come under fire with a prominent member of his district, describing his seven years in the senate as wasted years.
A commissioner in Akwa Ibom State Executive Council, Barr. Emmanuel Enoidem has asked the senator to desist from making unsubstantiated utterance against Governor Godswill Akpabio but to mention one life touching project he has attracted to his constituency throughout his tenure as a lawmaker.
Barr. Enoidem who is the Commissioner for Special Duties stated this in Uyo, Monday, while reacting to a statement credited to Senator Etok in an interview he granted a national daily (Sunday Independent of February 23, 2014).
In the said interview, Senator Aloysius Etok had claimed that his problem with Governor Akpabio started when he (Etok) moved a motion on the floor of the senate, “in support of President Goodluck Jonathan succeeding the late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua.”
The Senator went further to claim that “Akpabio, then, actually did not want Jonathan, who was Vice President then, to be sworn in as president. He also said that the governor was with the then PDP National Chairman, Vincent Ogbulafor, in the business of stopping Jonathan”.
But reacting to the interview, Barr. Enoidem who hails from Ikot Ekpene senatorial district, warned the senator to stop dancing to the gallery by engaging in blackmail against the governor.
“How can a Senator who has never called for a constituency briefing with his people and who has failed to move motions but rather travels round the world on his personal businesses turn around to engage in cheap lies against his Governor?” Enoidem quipped.
The Commissioner, who described the senator’s comment as false, said Nigerians and Akwa Ibom people are alive to the events that led to the incapacitation of the Late President Yar’Adua.
According to him, “it is the most idiotic claim that anybody in that rank could ever make. We are alive to the events that happened between the incapacitation of the Late President and the emergence of his Vice President as the President.”
“And we know the roles of all stakeholders both within the PDP and of course the nation and we know that the governor of Akwa Ibom State, Chief Godswill Akpabio was very pivotal in the emergence of Jonathan.”
“Inspite of all the intrigues, inspite of all the attempts to scuttle the emergence of Jonathan, Godswill Akpabio was very vocal and was very pivotal in supporting President Jonathan to take over from his late boss just in obedience with the provision of the constitution, because the constitution is very clear on the matter. So, there is no way the governor who is a lawyer for more than 20 years could have done anything otherwise.”
“Apart from just being a lawyer, the governor is from the South-South and his support for Jonathan has never been found wanting. So, it would be very lame for a Senator; a man who was helped and assisted by God through the governor to climb to that position both in his first term and second term, to make this kind of claim. It is extremely very childish and puerile.”
“I just hope that he didn’t say that but if he said it, it is very regrettable”.
Barr. Enoidem challenged Senator Etok to present himself in 2015 for re-election and he will lose woefully even in his own ward in the party primaries.
Describing his stay in the senate as an embarrassment to the senatorial district, the Commissioner stated that the decision by the people of Abak federal constituency of which he is a member to cede the senatorial seat in 2015, to Governor Akpabio is in recognition of Chief Akpabio’s dynamic performance in office as governor.
Enoidem reasoned that Aloysius Etok’s diminishing profile in the red chamber has robbed the senatorial district of quality and effective representation.
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