A former Akwa Ibom State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, Chief Otu Ita-Toyo, has said the immediate past Governor of Akwa Ibom State, Senator Godswill Akpabio, deviated from the ‘power sharing’ arrangement which was initiated by the state’s traditional chiefs in 1989.

The former chairman said Akpabio did this in order to impose Udom Emmanuel as governor.

Speaking on a private radio station in the state, Planet FM, Ita-Toyo, who recently defected to the All Progressives Congress, said he decided to join the APC in order to save Akwa Ibom-South senatorial district and the state from perdition.


 
Ita-Toyo faulted the decision of Akpabio to pick his successor from the Onna Local Government Area, explaining that the local government had produced a governor before.

The ex-PDP chair said Akpabio destroyed the arrangement that brought peace to Akwa Ibom. He accused Akpabio of organising a town hall meeting that was deceptive, insisting that Oro ethnic nationality in Akwa Ibom-South senatorial district was the ideal zone to produce the governor.

He said, “I decided to leave the PDP only recently when I discovered that the party’s irredeemable cabal had in the past eight years hijacked the party and deviated from the ideals upon which it was founded. The cabal started in the post-Victor Attah PDP period. They are a group of people who seize the instrument of authority, seize the instrument of cohesion and then deal with people in a manner that is completely and totally insensitive and undemocratic.

“Based on the circumstances, defecting to the APC was the intelligent thing to do as Akwa Ibom people must be prepared to reintegrate themselves into the mainstream of Nigerian politics. All those who gave the PDP life have joined the APC in a bid to redeem the state.”