By Inyali Peter
The winner of the All Progressives Congress, APC Cross River North Senatorial primary, Prof. Zana Akpagu has said that he remains the legally nominated candidate of the party for the October 31st bye-election.
Akpagu who spoke for the first time since the September 3rd APC primaries said that he’s not bothered by the decision of the party to forward another name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as candidate, assuring that his “stolen’ mandate will be retrieved.
It will be recalled that Akpagu who’s the outgoing Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar (Unical) was declared winner of the primary at the collation centre in Ogoja by the Senatorial Returning Officers but Chairman of the panel, Alhaji Suleiman Nakowa later announced Joe Agi who came second in the election as winner in Abuja.
Since the development, they have been disenchantment within the APC in Cross River with some members even threatening to mobilize against the party in the election if the winner of the primary is not allowed to fly the ticket.
But Akpagu has urged his supporters not to panic as he was in the process of reclaiming the ticket.
According to him: “the events of the past four weeks regarding our great party’s ticket for Cross River North has not been really palatable for every lover of democracy but we expected it as darkness and light are constantly in disagreement. For some reasons, I decided to remain quite and calm but my calmness at some point has been misconstrued for something else, hence my decision to speak through this address.
A lot has happened and happening in our great party regarding the ticket for Senate bye-election. Our victory in the party’s primaries is already in the public domain but for whatever reason, the party through the instrumentality of some strong individuals who are tacitly working with the opposition to frustrate our Party’s chances of winning elections in the state decided to substitute my name for my brother who came second to me.
The development has been shocking but expected. They may have succeeded in sending a wrong name to INEC as candidate but I can assure you that it’s just for a moment. It’s not yet uhuru for them because their candidate is only holding brief for us”.
He added that “We’re more confident now than ever that the party has learned some lessons from the ugly Zamfara and Rivers States scenarios as such would not want to trade in such paths again especially now that it’s rebranding. APC cannot continue to blow its chances of winning elections by imposing people who were never properly nominated as candidate.
If we lost in the field, we’ll have accepted defeat as democracy is all about the people. But since we did not, we’re not going to stay and watch some people with vested interests continue to destroy the party in the state for their selfish reasons”.
The VC maintained that “We are not deterred by what has happened because for us, we know and believe that power only come from God through the people and not just a select few. There’s something we have that they don’t and that’s you, the people.
I want to urge all our supporters to remain calm but steadfast. We didn’t come into the Senate race for a joke. We came to fight for the emancipation of our people and nothing has changed our resolve. We remain very committed and unrelentingly dedicated to seeing it through to the end not as spectators but as active participants and eventual winners”.
While thanking his supporters and members of APC in the state for the support so far, he said “I call on all our supporters not to join our opponents in horse-trading but remain committed to the ideals that make us unbreakable and unbeatable. We’re still fully in the race and we don’t have any doubt that in the end, we’ll reclaim our stollen mandate.
The party belongs to all of us and not a privileged few thus, we won’t rest until the impunity in Cross River State APC is sent to the abyss”.
