Despite operating across different political party lines, Governor Umo Emo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa State, has given insight into why he would never engage President Bola Tinubu, leader of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) at the centre, in a political fight.
Speaking while receiving hundreds of decampees from various opposition parties including the APC, Young Progressives Party (YPP); New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) and others into the ruling PDP in the state, the Governor warned the defectors against bringing bad influence into the party, especially insulting political leaders.
Addressing leaders, elders, youths and other stakeholders of the opposition parties at the Ibom Hall ground in Uyo on Friday, Governor Eno urged them to behave and work in sync with the State government by sustaining the existing cordial relationship between the State and the Federal Government.
He vowed that under no circumstances would he work at cross purposes with the centre as doing so would only lead to a strain relationship between the state which depends on the centre for monthly cash for its development.
According to him, such unhealthy rivalry would only put his administration at loggerhead with the Federal Government with attendant drain in resources that could ultimately impinge negatively on the development of the state and the people as articulated in his administration’s ‘Arise Agenda’.
He said: “I cannot fight President Tinubu, we cannot fight the centre. We have only one President of Nigeria and we must not attack or insult him. We will not use Akwa Ibom’s money to fight the centre because if you fight the centre, the centre can no longer hold.
“You can’t fight the person that gives you money and resources and expect him to continue to give you. If we use Akwa Ibom money to create trouble with the centre, and use it to be traveling to Abuja every day, it is the people that will suffer.”
Assuring that since assumption of office in the last 10 months, he has utilised the resources from the centre effectively into fixing physical infrastructure including roads, provision of social services – education, health, gratuity payment to retired civil servants and taking care of the aged, the governor maintained that such robust relationship with the centre cannot be truncated by the sentiment of politics.
He, therefore, enjoined the returnees to acclimatize themselves in the PDP fold as equal stakeholders while directing the State PDP Chairman, Elder Aniekan Akpan, to ensure equal rights and privileges for them in their new political home.
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