By Joseph Erunke
Having contested the governorship of his native Akwa Ibom State in 2003 and 2007 respectively to no avail, Obong Inibehe Okori, is no longer looking forward to that ambition, at least for now, due to his staunch principle to honour an established zoning agreement among the people of the existing three senatorial districts of the state.
But Ini, a former banker is stepping out to confront Governor Godswill Akpabio for the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial Zone seat in the forth coming election under the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP. He revealed why he will overcome the governor at the poll. Excerpts:
You are coming out to contest the Akwa Ibom North West Senatorial Zone election against Governor Godswill Akpabio, are you not threatened?
I am not threatened, not at all in any form. The confidence, number one, comes from God and secondly, from the people. The senatorial district is divided into zones and as you know, in this country and in the PDP, we all believe in zoning. The zone where I come from is called the Abak division, it’s a section of the senatorial district.
Ini Okori
The zone where Akpabio comes from is Ikot Ekpene division. Abak Division is made up of five big local government areas and Akpabio’s section is made up of three local government areas.
In 2007, an agreement was reached for the Anang people to produce the governor and concede the Senate to Ini Ikono Federal Constituency, which is a minority tribe of the Ibibios within the senatorial district.
When that was done, it was agreed that Ini Ikono should produce the senator, and that they produced to the benefit of Godswill Akpabio, the incumbent governor.
He said to us that please, concede this Senate seat to this people and I still recall what exactly he said then—that 109 senators are not equivalent to one governor. So we made concession for him to become governor and he became governor.
In 2011, our people cried out that this is our turn to go to the Senate and he said he still wanted to do a second term, ‘I told you before that 109 senators are not equivalent to one governor, I will give you the Senate seat come 2015’ and we conceded again and gave it back to Ini-Ikono, that was how the incumbent senator repeated twice.
If you check the history of that senatorial district, no federal constituency has repeated the Senate.
And having made all these concessions to him, for the purpose of fairness and equity and for the growth of Anang people which has eight local government areas out of the ten in that senatorial district, he promised that he was going to support one of us from Abak division to become a senator in 2015.
Now, that is not the case. In 2014, when the PDP senatorial primary came up, he offered himself to become a senator, saying that there is nobody from that section of the state that can make the Senate, not even him thinking of bringing somebody else out of his own section but himself.
That is why the people from that senatorial district said no, ‘your ambition is totally in disagreement and we are going to revolt against it, we must bring out one of our own and that was why I was motivated to come into the race.
Now, are you the only contestant from the Abak division to face Governor Akpabio for the position?
No, I am not but in the PDP, we are two from my section. But I am aware that the incumbent senator, Aloysius Etok has also taken form to contest the senate seat. So invariably, we are three but we are two from my own zone.
Where you are going to now could be likened to David’s fight with Goliath, but one wonders whether you will be able to repeat the feat of David…
I answer you in the affirmative. I agree with you but if I must be rhetorical, can I ask you ‘when the fight between David and Goliath took place, what happened?’
David emerged victorious
And that is what you should expect, because that it what it would be, by the grace of God, because David’s power did not come from the material things of this world. His power came from three sources-God, God and God. God elects leaders and God honours agreement that is made by human beings even on earth.
We had agreement in 2007, that agreement is what my people are interested in keeping to. I am the symbol of that struggle and we will take it to the end. And since I am the David, I will be victorious.
But some prominent persons have come out in support of the governor?
To be honest with you, I am not aware of any prominent citizen of Ikot Ekpene Senatorial district that is supporting Akpabio’s ambition. The people that are adopting Akpabio are his commissioners, his special advisers, in short, his aides. Those are not political leaders. Besides, his performance in the state has no bearing on the legislative matter.
Let me take you back to history, from 2007, we have been having former governors in the Senate, can you point at one bill any of them has brought up that has affected the lives of the masses of this country?
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