Some chieftains of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Akwa Ibom State have rejected former Senate Minority Leader, Senator Godswill Akpabio, as the party leader in the state.
A party chieftain, Emmanuel Sam, said on Thursday that he would not accept Akpabio as the party leader.
He said, “We cannot be led by a man who was brutal to us. We have not forgotten that his brutality made some members of the defunct Action Congress of Nigeria to move into what is called the APC today. He can never lead us. We will resist it.”
Akpabio on Wednesday formally defected to the APC from the Peoples Democratic Party.
Another chieftain of the party in Itu, Obong Mike Edem, said every right-thinking person in the party wouldn’t allow Akpabio to superintend over them.
He said, “He cannot be our leader. He will be contradicting himself because he cannot reject a skewed reward system which favours newcomers in his former party, yet wants to be rewarded in the APC through similar skewed arrangement.”
Edem added that they wouldn’t work with Akpabio because he persecuted them before they left the PDP.
A group, Akwa Ibom Progressives Watch, also stated that the APC would be more disunited under Akpabio if he was made leader of the party in the state.
The group at a press conference by its chairman, Mr. Innocent Sylvanus, on Thursday, warned that many people who left the PDP for the APC because of Akpabio’s impunity would be unwilling to work with him.
He said, “It will be a disaster to allow Akpabio lead the party. We want the national leader and chairman of the party to know this.’’
