Former Akwa Ibom Governor Quits PDP, To Retire From Politics

A governor of Akwa Ibom state has retired from active politics. He also attacked the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), a party on whose platform he ruled as governor.

Victor Obong Attah

Victor Attah, who was a member of PDP Board of Trustees, said he would be playing the role of an elder statesman to “continue to serve this country with love, strength, and faith”.
The former governor said the PDP did not stick to the ideals of democracy, and said for the party to bounce back it must stop looking for who to blame, and reorder its ways along the aims and ideals of its founding fathers.
“Who does not know that you only conduct election to fill a vacancy. But the PDP would start by announcing that there is no vacancy. Then it would offer ‘automatic tickets’ to a set of people. What manner of democracy” Premiumtimes quoted him.
He also attacked the PDP over the emrgence of his successor’s successor, Udom Emmanuel. He said Mr Udom was imposed on the people of the state and described the 8 years rule of his successor, Godwill Akapbio as “eight locust years”.
“Can the national publicity secretary of PDP, an eminent member of the National Working Committee that he is, point to anything in the constitution of the PDP that suggests that it is the wife of an incumbent governor that should nominate her husband’s successor, and having been so nominated, that the party should put its full weight behind the incumbent governor to impose the nominee on the state as his successor?” he asked.
The Akwa Ibom Governorship Election Tribunal recently nullified the April 11 governorship election in 18 out of 31 local government areas in the state, and ordered a rerun. Mr. Attah hailed the judgment as an indication that Akwa Ibom closer to being liberated.
Meanwhile, the national leadership of the PDP has summoned an emergency meeting of the party’s national caucus.
PDP had earlier described the verdict of the governorship election tribunal in River and Akwa Ibom states as completely bizarre, unacceptable and part of the script by the APC to manipulate the will of the people.
The party’s governors had also called for a meeting to discuss the implications of the judgments to the survival of the former ruling party.