By Tom Moses

EKET—The Eket Federal Constituency Elders Forum, yesterday, vowed to resist the truncation of the tenure of Mr  Dan Abia as the Managing Director of Niger Delta Development Commission, NDDC and by extension, the tenure of Akwa Ibom State.

The forum also decried the annulment of the Akwa Ibom State governorship election by the Court of Appeal, describing the development as a desperate march by the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC,  to conquer the state.

The Eket people, who reacted to these developments during a media parley by its Chairman, Brigadier-Gen. Anthony Etukudoh (retd) in Eket,  urged the Supreme Court not to succumb to the perceived pressure by the APC to conquer the oil-rich Akwa Ibom State, Bayelsa and Rivers States, in its dispensation of justice in the cases pending before it.

He said: “We are gathered here to express the position of this federal constituency on the vexed issue of the annulment of the Akwa Ibom State governorship election wherein our son, Governor Udom Emmanuel won. It was a mandate that was freely given by the majority of Akwa Ibom people but for untenable reasons, have become subject of the shenanigans of agents of the ruling party, the APC, in their desperate march to capture by force, the oil-rich states of Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa and Rivers.

“We have faith in the judiciary and trust that the Supreme Court will not bow to this desperation in the dispensation of justice.”

The people also expressed worry that their brothers from Uyo and Ikot-Ekpene senatorial districts, who they supported when they were on the governorship seat, were now grandstanding in the thinking that justice and equity should be sacrificed now to the detriment of Eket senatorial district, warning that they would resist any attempt by any senatorial district to scuttle their God-given mandate.

They urged Governor Emmanuel to remain focused on his well-thought out plans of infrastructural development and industrialization dotting the landscape of the state including the Ibom Sea Port, the Automobile Assembly Plant in Itu Local Government Area, Meter Manufacturing Company in Onna, among others.