Gentlemen of the press, we just said we should call you to share our experience today with you so we can leave it for the court of Public opinion to analysis and let us see whether what happened today should have happened or shouldn’t.
About a year ago, majority of the citizens of Ini- Ikono federal constituency decided to come together under one socio political bloc. Before this time, there has been so much rancour and diversity of interests which has always led to heightened tension among the political classes in the federal constituency which we believed had not helped in the development of the area.
And in order to reduce the tension, we all agreed to come together and unite and work together as brothers and sisters in the interest of the federal constituency. Distinguish Senator Aloysius Etuk used to have a different political vision and I used to have a different one from him, Chief Ukata Akpan and the rest have always had different political visions but all of us decided to come together and unite for the interest of the area.
We try to bury all these divergent political interest and come up with a socio Political group called Ntipe Ibibio and we tried to formally launch it last year. But due to some logistical challenges we couldn’t, we had to push it to March this year. But when we heard of government’s intentions of town hall meetings we decided to shift it and allow the town hall meetings to be concluded before the launch of our association which is guaranteed under the constitution of the federal republic of Nigeria. Freedom of Association and we set today 12th of April to launch the Association.
We had invited so many people; we invited all the aspirants so far identified. Not a single person was left out because we are not for any aspirant. Ours is to analyse all of the aspirants and look at their programmes and look at who will come and run Akwa Ibom well and develop our federal constituency in particular and Akwa Ibom in general. Someone that will evenly develop and spread developments across the state, someone that will unite the state as one even though we have dialectical variations. We believe we are one, so we decided to launch the Association today. But this morning as early as 6 30 am, I was called that the police said we should not hold the programme again, it was surprising because the whole state was informed, Ibibios were informed, all the traditional institutions in the state were informed of the event.
Also, about two days ago we were told that the two paramount rulers of Ikono and Ini in a bazaar circumstance went to radio and disassociated themselves from the programme. They did also take a full page in a newspaper to distance themselves from the event. To us, it was a surprise because we only invited them as traditional fathers to come and witness the programme. Instead of the traditional rulers to come to the organizers and say anything they wanted to say, they went to the radio and newspapers to announce that they are not associating themselves with the event today. Fair enough we will go ahead with the event because this is a socio-political group which has nothing to do with traditional institutions.
Let me emphasize that, it was out of respect that we insisted that they should be formally or traditionally invited. The two of them were invited properly all the traditional demands were met. We also informed the committee that was in charge of contact and mobilization and they also went round and informed the two local government chairmen and as a matter of fact, the Ikono Chairman granted us the use of the Ikono Council hall. We were in Abuja yesterday and we got a call that the Ikono Chairman has cancelled the venue of the programme; we said no problem we now decided to move to a school in Ikono.
Despite all the provocations, we didn’t mind the cancellation but this morning, the clan head went and ask the people who were setting up the canopy to stop. My question was this, we are not pursuing anybody, we are not against anybody, and we are really not for anybody. We are for the people.
This is an Association of like minds and our interest is to unite Ikono and Ini politicians so that we work together to reduce the crises that the federal constituency is known for, killing, crises over the years. Let’s come under one umbrella and work for the progress of our area, Akwa Ibom and Nigeria in general. And instead of one man or a woman being the cock that crow in the whole area, the only person to speak, we set up a leadership committee of at least one person from a ward to be in our leadership committee so that decision will be decentralized and everybody will be involved in the decision process. I don’t think that is bad for anybody.
So when we were told of the stoppage of the setting up of the venue, we then had to go down to the venue, myself and the distinguish Senator Aloysious Etok we saw the area commander and quite a number of policemen, they said they were there to maintain order, if you say you are here to maintain order, how come the issue of the destruction of the podium that was being set up one of your objectives, and how come you are stopping people from setting up the canopies? They said it wasn’t them, so we don’t know the police unit that did that, I understand one person’s camera was confiscated and destroyed.
To us this is an attack on democracy and I don’t think we deserve that but as law abiding citizens, immediately I heard that, I called the senator, we said lets go to the radio and announce postponement but it was too late because a lot of people were already on their way to the location of the venue and so much has been invested in terms of money and time, to procure entertainment some people out of excitement made voluntary donations, many people brought cultural displays to the venue. The peace that eluded us over the years because of selfish leadership interests began to come back. But we heard stories from the police because the police said they took instructions from above but that is a military language, we use to hear that during military rule but under democracy, there is no such thing and we will urge you people to please help us and find us this above.
Because above these days must have a face and a name and someone have to tell us if we have committed any crime by wanting to come together and work for the peace and progress of our area. Where have we gone wrong and why should we be stopped?
And just to avoid trouble we didn’t want any confrontation with the police or anybody and since we are law abiding citizens, we have come to ask the police to explain to us whoever gave the order and where we had gone wrong. We have something to contribute to the development of the state, of course we have our own complains, our federal constituency has not been touched with any development and anybody can go down there to see but we are not complaining because it is not every administration that will favour you, so it is now left for us to look forward to the next administration and try to work with whoever Akwa Ibom people wants so that he can come and develop our area. We also want to have roads, light and commissioners in Ikono and Ini, we also want to smile but what have we done wrong this is why we said we can’t fight, we are not ready to fight. Maybe somebody should tell us where we have gone wrong so that we can correct it.
Believe me no democracy will survive without a vibrant press that is why we want you journalists to help us ask the local government chairmen, the two paramount rulers to explain to you and the public what we have done wrong. They were properly invited and informed for three to five months ago and they had no objection and suddenly a traditional father will wake up in the morning two days to the event knowing full well that so much has been invested, you wake up and say that you are disassociating yourself from the event. You don’t have to go to the media if your intentions are genuine. You are simply supposed to tell us or you don’t show up. But come and see the tears in the eyes of Ini- Ikono people this afternoon in Ikot Ekpene most of them had dressed up because to them it was liberation, something they needed to see Senator Aloysius Etuk and Bassey Inuaeyen, Chief ukata, Dr. Clement Bassey now working together. So this is why we said you should help us and ask them because we need answers and someone has to tell us urgently. Someone has to tell us where we went wrong. Thank you so much.
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