The Akwa Ibom State All Progressives Congress (APC) says it does not plan to impeach the state Governor Udom Emmanuel as being speculated in some quarters.
The State PDP Chairman, Mr Paul Ekpo, had on November 27, alleged that the APC lawmakers met to impeach the governor.
Reacting, Mr Ini Okopido, the state APC Chairman, speaking with newsmen in Uyo on Thursday, described the allegation as faulty and misleading.
Owing to the crisis in the state House of Assembly, Okopido had on Wednesday called on President Muhammadu Buhari to declare a state of emergency in the state and remove Governor Udom Emmanuel from office.
On the contrary, his PDP counterpart, Ekpo urged President Muhammadu Buhari to overlook the call by the APC, for a state-of-emergency in the State.
Debunking the impeachment plan, Okopido said that the APC and its lawmakers would not waste precious time to institute a process of impeachment on the governor, who has about three months to leave office.
“Let me state categorically clear that we in APC have never discussed plans to impeach the governor, and indeed, we are not interested in moving for his impeachment.
“Rather, we are eagerly waiting for March 2, 2019, when Akwa Ibom people will vote out this incompetent and clueless governor.
“We have just three months to go, so there is no need to waste time on impeachment,” Okopido said.
The chairman said that the party or its lawmakers have no hand in the current crisis in the House of Assembly.
According to him, the illegality of declaring seats of five APC members of the House vacant, in spite of subsisting court action, is the immediate cause of the crisis.
Okopido expressed displeasure over the way and manner the PDP and its agents were insulting APC Chieftains in the state and called for a stop.
He wondered why the PDP is calling for redeployment of the state Commissioner of Police, Alhaji Musa Kimo, who is barely one week in office and expressed the party’s confidence on him.
Before now, Okopido had said “Governor Emmanuel’s inability to resolve the Assembly crisis which he allegedly started by pressurizing Speaker Onofiok Luke to declare the five APC seats vacant had made the APC call for the declaration of state of emergency necessary.”
The APC Chairman in a press statement issued on Wednesday said it looked ‘childish and amateurish’ for governor Emmanuel to call on president Buhari to solve the problem he created for himself.
The statement reads, “As the leading political party in Akwa Ibom State, we are shocked, embarrassed and petrified by the crisis that has engulfed our State House of Assembly in the last one week, and from all our investigations, we wish to state categorically that Gov. Udom Emmanuel is solely responsible for this crisis and so he should bear full responsibility for it.
“Since Udom Emmanuel instigated this crisis by pressuring Mr Onofiok Luke to declare the seats of the APC legislators vacant, both of them should solve the problems. Calling on the President to intervene in the crisis they created is childish and amateurish” Okopido said.
“Should the governor fail to address this problem, we call on the President to declare a State of Emergency in Akwa Ibom state and subsequently remove Emmanuel from Office.
“Udom Emmanuel has not only flouted the law and breached the principle of separation of powers by invading the House of Assembly with murderous gang of thugs; the governor himself appears to be too unwell to occupy the exalted office.”
He alleged that the governor went to the Assembly accompanied by a large crowd of thugs, some policemen and other government officials and ordered his thugs to beat up the five APC lawmakers.
The APC chairman said to worsen the situation, the governor went to government house and addressed the press indicting the new commissioner of police and asking for his redeployment and alleged that the crisis wass orchestrated by the APC.
While condemning the call by Governor Emmanuel for the redeployment of the commissioner of police, the chairman expressed confidence in the new Commissioner of Police who arrived the State only a few days ago.
Okopido also said that Senator Godswill Akpabio has no hand in the Assembly crisis and wondered why the governor would resort to heaping insults and abuse on Senator Akpabio.
“Since Senator Akpabio left the PDP in August, our governor has been so psychologically deflated that he blames the distinguished senator for all his afflictions, including his family problems.” he said.
Rejecting the call, Ekpo in a statement, accused APC of instigating violence in Akwa Ibom in order to pave way for the declaration of state-of-emergency which would lead to subsequent removal of Gov. Udom Emmanuel.
He urged the Federal government to utilise its energy in containing the Boko Haram insurgency ravaging the north eastern part of Nigeria than on a peaceful state like Akwa Ibom.
According to Ekpo, “The statement signed by Mr. Ini Okopido demanding that the President should declare a state of emergency in Akwa Ibom state and remove the democratically elected government of Governor Udom Emmanuel is a confirmation to our earlier announced intelligence relating to the motive of the APC in instigating violence in our state.
“The APC and her chieftains have always boasted of their total reliance on federal might, which they see as their only highway to power.
“We therefore call on the federal government to ignore the ill-informed demand for the declaration of a state of emergency by the APC and instead concentrate her efforts in fighting insurgents and the protection of our soldiers and other security forces, who are fighting to protect our sovereignty.”
On their take in the crisis rocking House of Assembly, Ekpo said, “in our case, the Speaker of the State Assembly, we have been reliably informed had applied restraint in the declaration of the seats of the law makers until they approached the courts and judgement was given against one of the law makers and the rest teamed up with him in pursuit of an unlawful course, of attempting to prevent the House of Assembly from undertaking its legal responsibilities.
“It is common knowledge that as at the time the speaker acted in declaring the seats of the former members vacant, there was no subsisting injunction or legal impediment restraining him or any other person from acting in that direction. It is therefore not in doubt that the declaration of the vacancy of seats of the former members was, is and remains constitutional, lawful, legal and extant and there is nothing the APC can do about it.
“The public has over the time witnessed the presence of unquenchable greed and the absence of basic intelligence and common sense in these characters, who have now congregated themselves into the APC, in a desperate conspiracy to grab power at all cost and by all means.
“We will be advocating that INEC should make psychiatric examination a precondition for holding executive positions in political parties. This will help to check the incursion of clothed deranged persons into the political turf.
“We call on our supporters to remain calm even in the face of unprovoked aggression by the war-minded members of the opposition. We call on security agencies to conduct their duties professionally, without political leanings.”
