A scheme to undermine the peace, calm, rights, and personal security of some politicians and individuals in Akwa Ibom State has been revealed to top security personnel.
The plot was said to have been hatched by some politicians whose scheme to force unpopular candidates on the state's citizens during the general elections of 2023 was foiled.
Yesterday, Dr. Usoro I. Usoro, spokesperson for the Young Peoples' Party (YPP) governorship candidate Akwa Ubok Abasi, issued the security notice.
The Director General, Department of State Services (DSS), Abuja, the Director, Department of State Services (DSS), Uyo, the Inspector General of Police, Abuja, the Commissioner of Police, Akwa Ibom State Command, and the media received copies.
According to the statement, the outraged politicians plan to organise numerous anti-people protests and to encourage wrongful and illegal arrests of those who they believe do not support them.
Usoro asserted that the YPP Governorship Candidate, Senator Albert Bassey Akpan, his political allies, and his new party, the YPP, will be held accountable for these protests and unfavourable public responses.
According to him, the government officials who are coordinating the plan saw that Senator Akpan had become the most well-liked politician in the state despite high-level intrigue, commercial deals, and mafia-style plans.
“Within weeks, against political bookmakers’ predictions, YPP has witnessed a mass movement expected to culminate in the ballot revolution, next year.
“Never in our state’s political history has any party grown with so much speed and mass acceptance. This evolving trend is said to be making senator Akpan/YPP’s opponents grossly uncomfortable, hence their ignoble plots.
“While drawing the attention of the security agencies to the inglorious scheme, it should be noted that already, the frustration-induced, anti-people plots have been set in motion with the recent arrests of some independent-minded Akwa Ibomites, who have refused to either be intimidated or financially influenced to support evil.
“For days now, some of our own members, including Idorenyin Umana, have been trailed, haunted and harrassed from their homes, while a newspaper distributor, Chidi Ngadiubia, has been arrested, reportedly on “orders from above”, for no specified crime.
“Equally, it has been in the news that some editors, including Ifreke Nsewo of The Mail newspaper, have been on the witch-hunt list of government, apparently for publishing the truth about the mass rejection of a certain unwanted, scandal-ridden and unpopular governorship candidate.
“While we in Akwa Ubok Abasi Campaign Movement support responsible journalism and lawful living, we strongly oppose acts of intimidation, injustice, victimisation and any attempt to plot anarchy in any form.
“The government and its agents should be reminded that we are still in a democracy, where tolerance for divergent opinions and rights of association and choices form the tenets of credible societal coexistence.
Any politician or group believing his or its candidate is popular should test such acceptability at the poll and not invite any mayhem on the people.
“Consequently, any individual or professional, including journalists, deemed to have gone beyond accepted codes or brief of his duty should be challenged at the court of law and not through undue intimidation, harassment, threats and unlawful arrests.
“While thanking our supporters, who are growing in leaps and bounds, for being steadfast on this God-backed project, despite inducements, threats and intimidations, we commend them for the new consciousness blowing across the state and urge them to continue on the path of peace, focus and lawfulness.
“This mission to actualise a new Akwa Ibom, founded on the “3R- mandate,” will certainly end in praise – as we jointly aim to recover Akwa Ibom, reconcile it genuinely back to God and reposition it for greatness!” the statement stressed.