“We revere Don Etiebet. PDP is a religion in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district and by extension in Akwa Ibom state…”
Joe Effiong
Obong Christopher Ekpenyong is the former Deputy Governor of Akwa Ibom State and founding member of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). He is currently the PDP candidate for the Ikot Ekpene North West Senatorial District in Akwa Ibom State. In this interview, he talks about the defection of former governor of Akwa Ibom, Godswill Akpabio to APC.
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Akwa Ibom is a two party state. Looking at the incursion the APC is making, are you not threatened that your senatorial district might be grabbed by the APC?
That’s a laughing matter. We are the traditionalists. You know in the world, there are people who are Christians and then you have the traditionalists. The traditionalists are the believers of the gods of the land. And just like the Jews, it is difficult for you to extinct the Jews, that is our it is in our own circumstance. We are the originators, the founders of PDP. We are no sojourners, that is people just joining. Those who left PDP are those who have benefited from PDP and they never knew what PDP was all about. They came in just like somebody joining the ABC transport in those days, going to Onitsha. Those who have gone out of PDP are travelers and they just came in to the boat and then enjoyed the honeypot they found in the boat that was initiated, nurtured and delivered by the PDP. And they felt in one form or the other that they are not safe again. So they left, we wish them luck.
Does that include your opponent, Senator Godswill Akpabio who people say is very popular?
I can’t see anything about his popularity. I don’t want to regret that I have been an apostle. I am a founder of PDP and incidentally, one of us that founded PDP something took him out. It was the kind of treatment that Akpabio melted to him that made him to leave. I am talking about Don Etiebet, he is the founder of PDP in Nigeria, Akwa Ibom and Ikot Epene senatorial district. He is my mentor, elder brother and elder statesman. It was because of the utterances and ill treatment melted to him by Akpabio that made him to leave and look for a new direction. Not so long, he couldn’t allow the man to find his bearing, he left where he came to destroy, the structure that build the PDP, that built the state. Akpabio tried to destroy the fabrics and Don did not have the patience and then jumped out of the house that he has built. Now he has gone to meet with Don again. Do you think that kind of marriage will work? It will not work, we are just waiting for time. Don is our boss, our mentor and our creator apart from God. We revere Don Etiebet. PDP is a religion in Ikot Ekpene senatorial district and by extension in Akwa Ibom state, nothing can change the clock. We are PDP. By blood, Akpabio was just a sojourner that came and benefited. A lot of us went to negotiate for power shift in 2005 and of course he christened himself as the conspirator. He conspired to destroy everything that is good so that he can have a leeway. So he had his way, but for everything that has a beginning must have an end. The end has come. And that end is that he has jumped out of the boat of the PDP into extraneous party which he abused. He said APC was a party of slaves. So, he is now also a slave.
You said you want to go and thank your people. Is it for giving you a ticket? You have said it all. I sat down here and watched Akpabio towered on the people for 8 years with nothing to show for it.
What about the roads he constructed?
What are you talking about? Road is a right of the people, are you not in a civilised democracy? Have you not been to America or even India that was christened the poorest in terms of their population, over 1.5 billion people? You don’t praise yourself when you build roads. What is the medium of communication? It is a means of transporting goods and services and of course he couldn’t do that with his father’s money. He did it with our public money. The resource control that I and governor Attah fought for when I was the deputy governor for six years, one month and five days was for him. And I resigned because of his intrigues. He was the one who poisoned the mind of governor Attah. He initiated the impeachment, even when Obasanjo intervened and saw that I had never committed any of those allegations that were made. Ojo Maduekwe asked me to return back to the office and I said no that I better return with life, that I better resign.