All Progressives Congress (APC) stakeholders in Akwa Ibom State yesterday condemned the crisis arising from the just concluded primaries for all elective offices, warning that it could hamper the party’s performance at the 2023 polls.
The party chieftains including the former spokesman of the House of Representatives, Hon. Eseme Eyiboh and a governorship aspirant, Prof. Chris Ekong, who lost out at the primary to Obong Akan Udofia, stressed the need for unity of purpose for the APC to take over the state in 2023.
Eyiboh and Ekong, who addressed journalists in Uyo, however endorsed the governorship primary election that produced Obong Udofia, and urged aggrieved aspirants and other angry stakeholders to rally behind him and other aspirants as well as accept the outcome of the exercise in good faith.
Eyiboh, who was declared the winner of the APC ticket to contest for the Eket Federal Constituency, and Ekong, who lost the governorship primary, said it was time for the healing process to begin under a genuine reconciliation drive to unite the Chief Godswill Akpabio and Senator John Akpanudoedehe’s factions ahead of the general elections In the state.
According to them, personal interest and other extraneous factors that have frustrated the party’s chances since 2015 should be jettisoned for the party to winn the state in next year’s polls.
“The APC in Akwa Ibom State since 2015 has suffered several bouts of self-inflicted loses at the polls. Many of the loses had derived from inflexibility of persons who had contested for the right to the gubernatorial slot of the party with venom that made them to decide that they cannot at any point accept the choice of the party men and women except, when such decisions were taken to favour them”, the said.
Condemning what they described as “the uncompromising clash of the beneficiary stakeholders”, Ekong and Eyiboh, urged the feuding parties including Akpanudoedehe, Senator Ita Enang and others who lost in the exercise to sheathe their swords and rally round Akpabio and the recognized Chairman of the party, Mr. Stephen Ntukekpo, for the greater interest of the party.
“These uncomplimentary clashes had over the years robbed the party of success at the polls in the state and had totally weakened the party’s ability to help maintain her teeming members and supporters, who always bear the brunt of these stakeholder’s covetous attitude”, they stressed.
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