By Kpebo Thomas
The Legal Adviser of the Peoples Democratic Party in Akwa Ibom State, Barr. Goddy Umoh, has described Senator Godswill Akpabio as a man who has capsized like a very bad boat.
He made the reaction on Wednesday in his office, while addressing newsmen on the claim by Senator Akpabio that he moved but did not defect to APC.
According to Barr. Umoh “Movement is unknown to the law, the constitution of Nigeria and the Peoples Democratic Party. What we know is defection and that’s exactly what he did. He wrote a letter to the party that he was not willing to be here again as he was defecting. It was in the news, it was everywhere and everyone saw it. For him to talk of movement today, he has capsized like a very bad boat”.
He added that as a people who gave Sen. Akpabio the mandate for the National Assembly, he should have let them know where and when there was flood, which never happened.
“If he is talking about flooding in terms of water, I don’t know because I don’t stay there but if it’s political flood, it’s very faulty for anybody to say so.
“If you look at the record and even the videos I still have, the first undertaking of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District to give Senator Akpabio a second term mandate was at his house in Ukana and I read it on behalf of the people of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial district stakeholders.
Barr Umoh said further that “the second endorsement which was at the Local Government Headquarters, I read it too”
“For all reasons, I can say that we gave him the mandate. For him to say there was flooding and he never at any point in time came back to us.
“We just woke up one morning to hear that he was leaving the party. There is nothing like movement, it’s either you defect or you decamp.”
He also faulted the claims of Sen. Akpabio, that he was at the verge of being expelled from the Party by his ward to truncate his re-election, adding that it is only the National Executive that would have done so if there was any need.
Barr. Umoh questioned why Sen. Akpabio went to secure court injunction if he did not defect, to prevent his seat from being declared vacant, maintaining that the PDP did not at any point in time choose to take anyone who defected to court, even when defectors went against the constitution glaringly.
“It’s a matter of choice. If anyone harms you, you have the choice whether to go to court or not. There are occasions we went to court and there are occasions we did not. We have the choice and it wasn’t the intention of the party to go to court on Akpabio’s defection.
I read that he went to court to prevent the National Assembly from declaring his seat vacant. The question should be, why was he scared? Why did he rush to court?
Even in the state house of Assembly, we did not choose to go to court but they themselves took the case to court, we only countered their claims and the court upheld the provision of the constitution to declare their seats vacant.”
