A/Ibom ex-deputy gov denies defection to APC

Former deputy governor of Akwa Ibom state, Mr. Christopher Stephen Ekpenyong, has denied newspaper reports making the rounds that he has defected to the All Progressive Party (APC).

The newspapers, mostly local tabloids, had gone to town with publications that the former deputy has ditched the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) which brought him to power in 1999.

But Ekpenyong, who was deputy to governor Victor Attah, said on Tuesday that his decision to decamp to APC or any other party would not be confided to few people but would be a public event.

He said “such insinuation remains in the warped imaginations of the purveyors of such unfounded allegation. I have never spoken or discussed my political future with anybody. I don’t know whether it is my spirit that they see there.

“Those who cooked the rumour should be able to substantiate as to what forum I declared for the APC. I am a big political figure, if I am leaving PDP, thousands of my followers should also leave with me, and such ceremony should be done openly.

“If I have any thought of leaving the PDP, it should be a product of painstaking negotiations based on genuine interests and not any parochial sentiments.

The ex-deputy governor stressed that any party looking for him should be able to satisfy his own interests and that of thousand of his followers in the state.

This way he added would put him in a better position to forget the party that he not only co-founded but whose platform he came into limelight as deputy governor.

He urged all supporters in the state to remain calm assuring that the crisis rocking the party would soon be resolved as stakeholders were working round the clock to settled issues in dispute.