By Chioma Onuegbu, Uyo

A total of six political parties including the All Progressives Congress, APC and the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, have been shortlisted to participate in the 2023 Akwa Ibom State Governorship debate organised by the State council of the Nigeria Union of Journalists, NUJ.

Other shortlisted parties for the debate include the New Nigeria People’s Party, (NNPP), African Action Congress (AAC), the Young Progressives Party(YPP) and African Democratic Party (ADC).

Comrade Aniekan Udofia, Chairman of the,”NUJ Political Committee”, facilitator of the event, disclosed this to newsmen during the official unveiling of the governorship debate Logo at the State Secretariat of the union on Thursday in Uyo.

Udofia also disclosed that the governorship debate would be broadcast live on Eleven Radio stations, six television stations and streamed live on several social media platforms.

His words: “The 2023 Akwa Ibom Governorship is scheduled to hold on Sunday, 29 January 2023, at Ibom Icon Hotels and Golf Resort at 4 pm. Only 6 out of the 18 political parties are invited to the debate.

“This committee wrote a letter informing all political parties about the proposed debate, but only the shortlisted 6 reached out to the committee to indicate an interest to participate.

“The six political parties that responded to our letter and the Governorship candidates that have had an interface with the Committee are AAC, ADC, YPP, PDP, NNPP and APC.And I have met all the six Governorship candidates and they have given me the assurance that they would be participating in the debate.

“Today is the unveiling of the official logo for the debate and other information that the public need to know-the official hashtag for the debate, the official Facebook page, email address, google sheet for questions to be sent to our question bank, and contacts to reach the committee”

Udofia, explained that, however, on the day of the debate the committee would follow the Law by ensuring that governorship candidates qualified by Law would appear on the debate.

He stressed that any candidate who was not qualified by Law would not appear on the debate, saying:”Also this committee will not allow any candidate to be represented. No candidate will get preferential treatment.

“To this committee all the candidates are incoming governors. And we are happy that the 2022 Electoral act has returned power to the people, so that people will now decide who they want to lead them”

He described the media practitioners as the committee’s most critical partner in the project and appealed to them to assist to drive the vision, adding:” the NUJ, as a body, does not own any media outfit, we therefore appeal that you own this project. And on our part we will ensure we deliver this project”

In his remarks, the Chairman of NUJ, Akwa Ibom State Council, Mr Amos Etuk, explained that the essence of the debate was to set agenda for good governance for the 2023 administration.

Etuk noted that the debate would ensure that the people made the best choice over who succeeds governor Udom Emmanuel, adding: “And I am happy that Akwa Ibom people are very much interested in this governorship debate”.