NDDC MD, PDP Elements in APC After Me, Akpanudoedehe Alleges
Ndubuisi Francis
A one-time Minister of State for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Senator John James Akpanudoedehe, has alleged that the Managing Director of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Nsima Ekere and some new PDP elements in the All Progressives Congress (APC) are trying to muzzle him out of the party he helped to build in his state, Akwa Ibom State.
In a statement which he issued at the weekend, Akpanudoedehe, a former senator, accused the NDDC chief executive of sponsoring people to push him out of the party in Akwa Ibom State and an alleged move to eliminate him because Ekere perceives him as a threat to his 2019 governorship ambition.
He said: “If you remove the lead actor from a film, that is the end of the film. I have laboured hard with my sweat and blood to build APC. Nobody can push me out. I will not allow anybody to tie my hands for people to deal with me.
“These people wanted me dead in PDP. They charged me for treason and murder. Now, they crossed over to APC, which we built with our sweat and blood, and they now want to push me out.”
Ekere and his alleged collaborators, the former minister further alleged, induced some people to sign a document suspending him from the party.”
Although efforts by THISDAY to reach Ekere to react to the allegations were futile, a very close friend of the NDDC MD, however, dismissed the allegations as the antics of a drowning man, desperately seeking attention.
He said an allegation bordering on plot to eliminate someone was such a weighty one, and not something that one bandies about without substance.
According to Ekere’s confidant, if someone is alleging that a plot is being hatched against his life, the first thing to do was to report to law enforcement agencies to investigate.
He argued that if Akpanudoedehe has neither reported Ekere to the police for investigations nor the police extending any invitation to the NDDC boss to answer to such allegations, such allegations were a mere attempt to draw attention to his long gone political relevance.
According to him, anyone who is conversant with Akpanudoedehe’s political trajectory would not find his latest allegations odd, adding that they are in tandem with his antics over the years.
Speaking further on the alleged plot kill him, the NNDC’s ally said it was the funniest thing anyone who knows Ekere well could associate him with, describing him as ‘the most gentle human being I have ever known.”
But the former minister insisted that the NDDC chief wanted to neutralise him: “What they are doing is unconstitutional; anything founded on corruption cannot stand. It was fed by corruption. They are trying to muzzle the old ACN tendency within the APC out of the party.
“They brought in a fake ward chairman to say they had suspended me. They paid people to remove me from the party I built. The people who wanted me dead in PDP are now in APC and are behind this plot.
“Their plan is to stop us from participating in the mini congress. But they will not succeed,” he alleged.
The former PDP members, PDP defectors, who joined the APC, he lamented, have taken all appointments due to Akwa Ibom State.
“They are federal minister, Special Adviser to President on National Assembly Matter, Commissioner in NPC, Managing Director of Oil & Gas Free Zone, House of Representatives from the state and ambassadorial slot of Akwa Ibom.
“They have taken over the party we built. Ekere removed the state Chairman of ACN, made him Chairman of Eket Local Government just to diminish us in the state and take over the party.
“We want more people in APC, but these people give the impression that everything is closed as if we don’t want more people, which is false. They have the audacity and moral authority to assault the sensibilities of the people,” Akpanudoedehe alleged.
Efforts by THISDAY to reach Ekere to react to the allegations were futile.
However, a very close friend of the NDDC MD dismissed the allegations as the antics of a drowning man, desperately seeking attention.