Akwa Ibom tackles Action Congress over Gov. Akpabio's Award

advertisement

http://www.burstnet.com/ads/ad15329a-map.cgi/ns/v=2.3S/sz=300x250A/  

The Akwa Ibom State Government has described the statement credited to the National Publicity Secretary, Action Congress of Nigeria, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, on the award of Doctor of Management Science on Governor Godswill Akpabio by the Nigeria Defence Academy as “strange and infantile.”

A statement on Thursday by the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor, Pastor Anietie Ukpe, said for the ACN spokesman to say Akpabio did not deserve the award by the NDA was “a crass ignorance and intellectual suicide.”

Ukpe said, “To suggest as he (Mohammed) did that they 'found that all past honorees have made direct contributions to the NDA, and were thus deserving of the honours bestowed on them by the military institution. But the same cannot be said of Akpabio and Mrs. Allison-Madueke' was nothing less than crass ignorance.

“Mohammed should have done a painstaking research on the origin of honorary doctoral degrees. By so doing, he would have acquired some much needed education and not put his abject ignorance in the public domain. Honorary degrees are degrees awarded to honour and formally recognise an individual's contributions to a particular field.”

The governor's spokesman said it was unfortunate that while Akpabio was busy making history, ACN was busy making histrionics, stressing that if the governor had invested in the development of the NDA and contributed to its growth, Mohammed would have accused him of “bribing” the institution in order to be given the honour.

Ukpe stated, “It is to the credit of the NDA, that without any burden of obligation or inducement of any kind, and after an objective investigation of the accomplishments of Govenror Godswill Akpabio, the reverred institution decided that he had done enough for his state and contributed enough to national development to merit the award of a Doctoral Degree in Management Science (honoris causa) and accordingly honoured him.

“This instead of detracting from the award, bestows dignity on it.

And it should be noted that in accordance with the tradition of awarding doctoral degrees (honoris causa) it defined the area of his honour as management science in recognition of the management skill he has deployed in administering Akwa Ibom State.