The Akwa Ibom State Government has refuted reports that it sent an assassination squad after Senator Aloysius Etok representing the state’s North-West Senatorial District.
This was contained in a statement by the Commissioner for Information and Communications, Mr Aniekan Umanah, who described such allegations as baseless and mere hallucination.
Umanah said that the state governor, Godswill Akpabio had no problem with Etok and would not join issues with anyone on the comments credited to the senator.
He said, “Governor Akpabio is a God-fearing and peace loving man, and has never and will never contemplate evil against anyone let alone his brother and friend, Senator Aloysius Etok.”
Umanah described the allegation of mobilising Local Government Chairmen and state lawmakers against the Senator as a figment of the imagination of the authors of such scripts.
He noted that the governor could not have been party to the actions of the local government chairmen and the lawmakers as he was attending the Commonwealth Bar Association Conference in Cape Town, South Africa.
He also responded to the allegation that Akpabio was resurrecting a hit squad to fight Etok, saying, “For the avoidance of doubt, Akpabio has no hit squad and has never been after the life of any citizen of the state.”
Akpabio and Etok have lately been involved in a war of words over the bid of the governor to contest for the AkwaIbom North-West Senate post currently occupied by Etok, who has also declared his intention to run for a third term in the senate.
Etokaddressed newsmen at a press conference where he alleged that there have been series of text messages from “Akpabio killer squad” threatening to assassinate him if he insists on re-contesting the senatorial seat.
He said, “I have on this phone (holding his phone) some text messages that if I don’t retract the statement that I will contest election, after seven days, I will see what they will do.
“The Governor has also instructed different groups that if I don’t retract the statement within seven days, I will either be dead to stop me, or alive to retract the statement.
“Therefore, I want you all the media to ask the Governor or those he had let loose to tell the world what is the insult. That if what happened during my second term struggle, that as soon as they knew I was going to contest, my wife was kidnapped.
“After the release of my wife, my mother-in-law was kidnapped. When she was released, she died because of the torture she received in the hands of the kidnappers.
“As a result of that my father-in-law died of heart break. Therefore, I also want Nigerians to ask Governor Akpabio what I have done to him. I have not done anything to him.
“I want all of you, like I am going to send a petition to the President, to ask Governor Akpabio to let me be. That his hit squad which he has resurrected should let me live.
“If anything happens to me, I want the world to know that Governor Akpabio is after my life.”
Akpabio had last week announced that Etok would serve as his campaign manager for the 2015 Senatorial election.
But Etok on Sunday in Abuja dismissed his recent “appointment” as campaign manager for Akpabio as an “embarrassing joke”.
He also said that the governor was trying to demean his office and that the process of recall, which had begun with the collection of signatures of members of his community, was part of a grand design to distract him from the race.
Etok said, “All that (recall) is about 2015. It is part of the intimidation project and programme to make sure I don’t contest the 2015 Senatorial elections against the governor.”
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