Tension has enveloped the camp of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) as supporters are spoiling for a showdown following the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Akwa Ibom State to declare the party’s candidate for Ikono/Ini federal constituency, Emmanuel Ukpong-Udo, as winner of the contest four days after the re-run election.
The poll’s result was cancelled due to widespread violence, killing and snatching of ballot materials.
Going into the re-run exercise across 17 units in Itak, Ward 11, Ikono local government area, the incumbent lawmaker was leading the former commissioner for agriculture, Dr Glory Edet, of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)with a margin of 4,161 votes, but for the violence that marred the contest, which made the resident electoral commissioner (REC), Dr Cyril Omoregbe, to again annul the poll.
The leadership of the party in the state expressed fears that like the Adamawa case, INEC could be on the verge of scuttling the will of the people of Ikono/Ini federal constituency.
At a press conference yesterday in Uyo, the state capital, YPP chairman, Apostle Nyenime Andy, raised the alarm, warning against any sinister ploy to rob the party of victory.
He said, “Our attention has been drawn to the plot by desperate individuals from the Akwa-Ibom State PDP in cahoots with some reckless officials of INEC, to reenact the Adamawa episode, which was vehemently resisted and roundly condemned by Nigerians and the international community.
“While we are still grappling with the sudden failed coup in Adamawa by some enemies of democracy, the PDP in similar fashion, having failed to subvert the will of the good people of Ikono/Ini Federal Constituency despite unleashing mayhem that claimed the lives of several citizens in the February 25 presidential/NASS elections and subsequently in the April 15th supplementary election, are now at the verge of doing everything necessary to usurp a mandate freely given to Hon. Emmanuel Ukpong-Udo,” he said.
He said that the candidate of the YPP, on February 25th polled 19,926 votes against the 15,765 votes scored by the candidate of the PDP in 20 out of 21 wards of the federal constituency, but the election was declared inconclusive by INEC because of pre-election violence sponsored by the rigging machinery of the PDP in just one ward, thereby setting up a supplementary election, which was also violently disrupted by the same desperate politicians not willing to subject themselves to the verdict of the electorates.