1. The Akwa Ibom State APC Governorship Campaign Organisation has observed with dismay and consternation that for about one month now spokesmen for Mr Udom Emmanuel have persistently made utterances both in the printed press and in the social media that are highly disrespectful of the Office and the person of the President and Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Federation, His Excellency, President Muhammadu Buhari, and other APC leaders in the country.

2. We want to state categorically that Udom Emmanuel is being held responsible for these acts of impropriety by his men and will continue to be held responsible for every act of insult and disrespect in the future to the President and other APC leaders, if he cannot rein in his boys. Specifically, the boys used in committing these acts of hubris include Mr Emmanuel Nicholas, who is the personal assistant to Udom Emmanuel on documentation; Mr Uwem Umanah, a brother to Aniekan Umanah, the current commissioner for information in the state; and Mr Ndueso Essien, who together with Uwem Umanah, are members of Mr Emmanuel’s media warfare team.

3. We have kept a diary of this injudicious use of the Office of Governor of Akwa Ibom State to haul insults at the President and his exalted Office. We have also duly catalogued all the lies fabricated almost every other day on the instruction of Udom Emmanuel to malign the person of the APC governorship candidate in the state, Mr Umana Okon Umana.

4. Our record shows that on 13 August 2015, Mr Emmanuel’s publicity team fabricated a lie against the President, to wit: that the President has abandoned and refused to see Umana since the elections. Emmanuel’s propaganda team published the very next day, 14 August 2015, another fabrication that following the refusal of the President to grant Umana audience, the state APC governorship candidate went to Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu to beg the APC national leader to intercede and take him to the President for an audience. And on 24 August 2015, Mr Emmanuel, through his propaganda team, brought out a new fairy tale that Umana was in fisticuffs with his lead counsel at the ongoing election petition tribunal hearing in Abuja.

5. The truth is that none of these fabrications has any basis in facts. Umana has an excellent relationship with the President and has met with the Commander-in-Chief many times since he was elected into office. The President is in support of Umana’s petition at the governorship election petition tribunal and is on record as having expressed this support publicly when Umana led a delegation of APC members and leaders of the state to visit him on 7 May 2015. As for Umana’s relationship with his legal team, no one can boast a more cordial and brotherly counsel-client relationship than Umana and the team of lawyers prosecuting his petition at the tribunal. Evidence of this uniquely warm and friendly relationship is there for all to see in the amount of achievement by the legal team at the tribunal. The team has won all the applications filed by the petitioner before the tribunal, save for one in which the tribunal decided to treat the matter on merit while conceding that Umana’s legal team was right in the technical argument; Umana’s legal team has rounded off the presentation of the petitioner’s case ahead of almost all similar cases in the country.

6. We invite the good people of Akwa Ibom State to take note of the serial attacks on President Buhari and leaders in the state by Udom Emmanuel, who is using the Office of Governor of the State to irreverently aim pot-shots at constituted authority. We want the good people of our dear state to note that Mr Emmanuel’s conduct is both inconsistent with our way of life and unbecoming of the Office of the Chief Executive of a state.

Signed:
Iboro Otongaran
Director of Media and Publicity
Akwa Ibom APC Governorship Campaign Organisation