Akwa Ibom APC primaries: Provide evidence you defeated me, Eyiboh challenges opponents

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

Former spokesperson of the House of Representatives and All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for Eket/Onna/Esit Eket/Ibeno federal constituency, Hon. Eseme Eyiboh has challenged his opponents to show evidence of their acclaimed victory in the just concluded nomination.

Eyiboh polled 180 votes out of 215 total votes of accredited delegates to beat two other aspirants, Kingsley Edoho and Rt.Hon. Aniekan Akpan who scored 15 votes and 20 votes respectively, at the election.

However, in another primary election, Kingsley Edoho has claimed to be the APC candidate for the federal constituency after allegedly polling 198 votes to defeat Eyiboh and Akpan, who were said to have scored 10 and 5 votes.

But Eyibo in a press conference on Wednesday in Uyo, challenged his opponents to show the evidence of their purported victory by proving if there were recognized national party officials, INEC officials at the venue they conducted the “shambolic elections.”

Eyiboh insisted that the primary election that saw to his victory was conducted by the recognized chairman of the party, Mr Stephen Ntukekpo as well as national officials of the APC, who brought the sensitive materials under the observation of the officials of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, from National headquarters, Abuja.

According to him, “Those laying claims to victory should show which of the election committee panels conducted their primaries. They should know that elections are not conducted with a piece of paper but with sensitive materials and ballot papers which are used in determining the authenticity of who is doing what.

“There was a panel constituted by the APC to go and conduct the primaries, and that was done in the presence of Ntukekpo’s exco. I heard people saying that there was a parallel primary, the question is, who led the team that came to conduct the election? Who were the other people that conducted the other primaries? Where did they conduct the primary and who announced the results?

“There is one APC, there was one primary conducted and there was a result.”

Asked about the two factions of APC in the state with two chairmen, Eyiboh said there was no faction in the party.

He said, “Why there are no factions in the APC is that there is only one APC headed by Alh. Abdullahi Adamu, and if you know any other one, you can bring him up. Whoever is delegated by the instrument of the National APC is the agent  at state level. In Akwa Ibom, we have Austin Ekanem, and Stephen Ntukekpo. The matter went to the federal high court.