The dust raised by the last Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) primary elections in the State might take till eternity to settle, our political desk observed.
Speaking with journalists recently in Uyo, the State capital, the immediate-past Commissioner for Environment and Mineral Resources in the State, Hon John Harry, faulted the process that led to the PDP primary elections in the State and also accused the Akpabio led PDP government for being impervious to needs of the citizens.
“You have a process whereby people buy nomination forms, a process whereby people rally around their candidates, looking up to a party primary, at the end of the day you sit back in the state capital, hold back original materials, send the fake ones to people to go and die in the different local government areas. Is that not being irresponsible? You are not being responsible.”
“The point of deviation for me is that point because I believe strongly that the values of PDP I met when it was founded 16 years ago is not what is obtained today. Today you have one man exhibiting absolute power. Such power is not encouraging because there is nowhere in the world that you can find the kind of things that you have seen in Akwa Ibom. There is no state in Nigeria that one person has sat down to bring out people he wants for all the elective positions in the state. That one person is Akpabio”, he retorted.
John Harry who is standing the forthcoming House of Assembly election under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for Nsit Atai State Constituency, Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, maintained that the only way out of the dungeon of the PDP led government is total overhauling the present system and their style of governance.
“The PDP does not have the monopoly of knowledge to run government. They don’t have to say that the way they run government is the standard which government has to be run or the way they have run government in the past 16 years is the way government ought to be run. There is a more and appropriate way to managing government. There is a more effective, responsible way of carrying government activities. There are better ways of conducting as leaders in government. So when we say change, it has a lot of implications. It could be change in style of governance, it could be change to attitude to serve the people, it could be change in the way and manner you conduct yourself in office. The truth is, there must be change in the way and manner things were done before and that is what APC government is coming to do in Akwa Ibom”.
The Nsit Atai born heavyweight politician boasted that come May 29, his party, APC, will take over the Hiltop Mansion; evident in the myriads of supporters the ‘broom party’ is receiving across the three senatorial district of the State.
“Check, you will see that there is a ground swell of support. The party is ready to win the elections. You can see a lot of discomfort in so many places about the potentials of APC and it is real. This is what nobody can take away because people have the mind-set of change, there is no way you can change their mindsets. The time has come for this change. This party that is canvassing for this change is ready for it. People are accepting it. The wave is big and is real. What you have seen with the election shift is a postponement of doom’s day because it will surely come, whether the election is being shifted to December you cannot change the mindset of the people. They are ready for that change and that change is what the APC will bring to the totality of Nigerians”.
When quizzed, Harry who recently bagged his PhD., bluntly refused to accept insinuations in some quarters that Akpabio was doing him a favour by appointing him into the State Executive Council.
“My serving as Commissioner was not a reward, it was not a favour that was done to me, it was reward for service because I actually took part in the processes that produced that government. So, nobody should look at it as if there was anything significant about being a Commissioner for the one year and ten months I was a Commissioner. I actually worked for it. And the people that are in government know about that. I didn’t come from the blues to come and assume that office. And at the point that I left office I didn’t have any issues with them. I went on to pursue my academic degrees”.
On his aspiration to represent the people of Nsit Atai in the State House of Assembly, John Harry stressed that Nsit Atai people are now aware of those who have their interest at heart, maintaining that with his achievements while as an appointee of the government and as a private man, Nsit Atai people have taken their stands already, which they will translate that into votes for him to represent them at the House of Assembly.
No comments:
Post a Comment