AKPABIO BOWS TO AMAECHI: DUMPS DAN ABIA FOR EKERE

iReporters News. 

Senator Godswill Akpabio has finally succumbed to powerful superiority of his erstwhile counterpart and former chairman of the Nigeria Governors’ Forum, Mr Rotimi Amaechi, on the control of Akwa Ibom State, and the actual soul of the Niger Delta region.
The final show of superiority has come with the emergence of Amaechi’s godson Mr. Nsima Ekere, as the flagbearer of the All Progressives Congress,APC in Akwa Ibom State.
Ekere has been a subject of conflict between Akpabio and Amaechi from 2011when he allegedly blackmailed out Patrick Ekpotu, to come in as deputy Governor.
In 2012, the then Governor of Akwa Ibom State received a damning report that his deputy was spending more days in Port Harcourt than in Akwa Ibom.
On further intelligence gathering, he discovered that the journey to the Bricks House in Port Harcourt, was in connection with the seat at the Hill Top Mansion. What was more stunning was the fact that unlike previous information that Mr Ekere was eyeing the seat in 2015; there came the damning revelation that Ekere was plotting to turn the hand of the clock backwards and overthrow the incumbent Governor.
Not only was this evil plot a slap on Godswill Akpabio, it was also a snare, considering the running battle he had been bedeviled in the hands of his Rivers State counterpart. The cold war on who becomes apt with the nomenclature of the LION OF THE NIGER DELTA, made it insulting that Amaechi would produce Akpabio’s successor.
However the emergence of Mr Ekere as flagbearer of the APC can also be seen as a revenge for Amaechi over Akpabio, who in 2015 worked hard to support the emergence of Barr Nyesome Wike as Governor in Rivers State, as against Dakuku Peterside of the APC who was the in Amaechi’s succession plan.
Before his defection, Akpabio had been assured of full powers to control the APC and had gone to the party with the idea of ensuring the emergence of his long standing friend and former colleague in Obong Victor Attah’s government, Barr Bassey Dan Abia(Snr).
However pressure from Rotimi Amaechi, the Minister of Transportation, who is the Director General of the Buhari re-election campaign organization, and inducements from Mr Ekere , made Akpabio to capitulate and withdraw from supporting Abia, who he personally brought into the race.
The current arrangement, may have lend credence to the attempt by the APC to anchor its control of the regions of the country on key leaders, with Bola Tinubu controlling the South West, Rochas Okorocha in charge of the South East and Rotimi Amaechi to lead the South South.

Culled from Global Pilot