Etim Ekpimah, Uyo

Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State has declared  his intention to run for a second term of four years in office.

Announcing his second term ambition amid a mammoth crowd at the Godswill Akpabio Internatonal Stadium – Nest of Champions, Emmanuel said he was banking on his superior performance to return to the Government House, Uyo, in 2019.

“No man is God. I submit myself for consideration to continue with the good work that I have done and I seek your support for my candidature as governor for second term,” he said.

He listed industrialisation as his major achievements in the last three years, stressing that the conglomeration of industrial clusters including toothpick, pencil, syringe, electric metres, coconut factory, paint factory, fertilizer firms and several kilometres of roads, would recommend him for a re-election.

He said the Akpabio administration left behind some uncompleted projects including the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel at Ikot Ekpene and the Uyo-Ikot Ekpene Road, stating his administration had been working hard to ensure the completion of those legacy projects.

“Who said they have completed the Four Points by Sheraton Hotel? It is only today that we are negotiating with Starwood Group for the retainership of the name, which some surreptitiously put up on a building. Is building a hotel?”

He urged the people to rally round him in his quest to sustain the tempo of good governance he introduced in his first term in 2015.

In the same vein, the Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Onofiok Luke; a former military governor of the state, Otuekong Idongesit-Nkanga, who chairs the governor’s re-election committee, and the state’s PDP Chairman, Obong Paul-Ekpo, charged supporters and stakeholders of the PDP to work towards ensuring the PDP retain Akwa Ibom with Udom Emmanuel in 2019.

Solidarity messages from the neighbouring state governors of Rivers and Abia; Nyesom Wike and Okezie Ikpeazu, assured Emmanuel that he would win the election based on track record of quality works in the last three years.

They encouraged the people not to allow external influence to alter the already stable political arrangement ably directed by the PDP in Akwa Ibom since 1999.

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