2023: Akpabio mocks PDP, says ‘umbrella torn to shreds’

Godswill Akpabio, the All Progressives Party (APC) senatorial candidate for Akwa Ibom North-West District, has flagged-off his campaign, five days after being reinstated by the Supreme Court as a candidate of the party.

Mr Akpabio, a former governor of Akwa Ibom State, kicked off a tour of the wards in his district on Wednesday. He was accompanied by his wife, Unoma.

The tour began at Oruk Anam Local Government Area, his spokesperson, Jackson Udom said in a statement on Facebook.

Before defecting to the APC in 2018, Mr Akpabio was twice elected as governor of Akwa Ibom and in 2015 elected senator of the district under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

He contested again for the Senate in 2019, this time as a candidate of the APC, but was defeated by the PDP candidate, Christopher Ekpenyong, a former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom State.

Addressing a crowd at the Oruk Anam rally, the former senator said, “The logo of our party is the broom. I am now in the broom party because the umbrella had long been torn into shreds,” apparently deploying the logo of his former party to mock it.

He appealed to the people to vote for him as their senator, Bola Tinubu as their president, and other APC candidates, in the election.

“As governor, I laid a solid foundation for the future development of our senatorial district and the state in general. My uncommon performance in office as your governor was to lay the foundation for the emergence of another governor within us in the future because as they say, one good turn deserves another.

“Before I left office (as governor) in 2015, I was able to link Abak, Etim Ekpo and Ika local government areas to other parts of the state through a good road network,” he said.

Mr Akpabio said, without proof, that he was robbed of victory in the 2019 senatorial election.

“You people voted overwhelmingly for me, but some people colluded to rob me of my victory. The Professor who was used to rob me of that victory in 2019 is now in jail,” Mr Akpabio said at the rally.

An ad-hoc official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Peter Ogban, a professor of soil science at the University of Calabar, who was the returning officer in the election, was later jailed for falsifying results in favour of Mr Akpabio.