Opinion: Letter to Akwa Ibom People on the Coming Governorship Election; By Wole Arisekola

For the last couple of days, I have spent energy and time addressing some post-election issues and controversies especially the needless blackmailing of Senator Godswill Akpabio by enemies within and outside his party.

The purpose of this article is to reset the brains of few educated illiterates who think they are mocking God’s anointed son.

First, I want to underscore that my purpose is not to incite any form of tribal sentiment against any group but to put the records straight that the unfortunate event that happened upper Saturday was as a result of an avoidable mistake among the leaders of the All Progressives Congress in the state.

My primary purpose for this article is to offer advice on how we can face the electoral umpire together as a team in the next election in the state.

My strong conviction is that all forms of hatred, resentment, anger and malice are wasted emotional and psychological energy that could be better channeled into improving one’s lot and the lot of others.In a few days time, we will be going to the polls again. Many of you may be asking if it is worth the time and energy, going to stand under the sun for a process that will be manipulated and for which the results may have been written ahead of time.

In fact, many of you may have become more convinced that “our votes do not count”. There is no denying that the votes of thousands of Akwa Ibom citizens were set aside on February 23 by Mr Mike Igini for a contrived result which suggests that our votes do not count.

But it is actually because our votes do count that it took the Peoples Democratic Party and Igini more than 72 hours to declare the result on the multilated sheet in favour of an unknowm and less fancied candidate of the election in Esie Udim Local Government. Our votes counted to the point that the Akwa Ibom Resident Electoral Commissioner had a hard time manipulating the results.

I am a living witness to the fact that people of Akwa Ibom State made a very good outing at the presidential and National Assembly elections.
I am in shock that the outcome was far from what we anticipated. But that should not daunt our spirit. Rather, that should make us more resolute on our mission to change the PDP government in Akwa ibom State.

We must know that the state elections are around the corner. Believe me my brothers and sisters, the state election, contrary to popular opinion, is even more important than the federal elections. The reasons are simple and clear.

When Senator Akpabio was in power as the Executive Governor of Akwa Ibom State, he demostrated the big impact that a state can have on the lives of its citizens by constructing the best roads in the history of Nigeria in rural areas throughout the state. He believes that government should not be for the elite alone but for everybody .
He actually demostrated that governance takes place at the state and local government levels and the state government can make far greater impact and direct impact on the lives of the people far more than the Federal Government.

My dearest brothers and sisters , our father, Professor Yemi Osinbajo, the Vice President of Nigeria and Chief Adams Oshiomhole, the National Chairman of our great party were here yesterday. They are feeling the same pain that we are feeling and they came to sympathise with us and promised to ensure that there is a redress of the injustice done to us by INEC and Mr Mike Igini last Saturday.

They told us that the survival of Akwa Ibom depends on those who we allow to govern us at both the state and local government levels.
All what we need to do is to come out and vote out PDP on Saturday.
We must not throw out the baby with the bath water. We must come out in the large numbers and perform our civic duty .

I am very proud of you my brothers and sisters.
God bless the Land of Promise, God bless Akwa Ibom and God bless Nigeria.