2015: Politicians Exposed In Name-Dropping Scam

Ahead of the 2015 elections, desperate Politicians are currently hoodwinking opponents and party officials of a presidential blessing, causing panics and division in their states.

One of such is the acting chairman of the Presidential Monitoring Committee on the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Professor
Richard P. King.

Sources in Akwa Ibom State and Abuja say Professor King has been going round conning people into believing that President Goodluck Jonathan has endorsed him for governor of Akwa Ibom State come 2015.

Born of an Eket, Akwa Ibom State mother and an Isoko, Delta State father, Professor King was a schoolmate in the University of Port-Harcourt to Dr Jonathan, Nigeria's current President. Professor King is exploiting the schoolmate link and the fact that he works for the Presidency to dupe people and cast the President in bad light among his supporters in Akwa Ibom State.

Rumour swept Akwa Ibom State recently that Dr Jonathan was going to announce the endorsement of Professor King for governor during the President's visit to the state on 27 October 2012 to commission the new Governor's Office and other projects. At the time of the visit Professor
King was burying his mother in Eket, the oil city of Akwa Ibom State, and the air was thick with rumour that the President would attend the funeral and endorse King for governor in 2015.

Sources close to Professor King said he instigated the rumour through his habitual name-dropping stunt to massage his inflated ego. Of course, the President did not go to Eket and did not attend Professor King's mother's funeral. A source at Aso Rock Villa said the President couldn't have attended Professor King's mother's funeral because it was not part of the itinerary of the President during the visit to the state, adding that Professor King's use of the President's name for personal political gain is a con game that should be disregarded. The President has no plan to endorse King now or in the future for governor of Akwa Ibom State or Delta State, the source said.

In spite of having been exposed for peddling a cheap lie against the President and for grossly abusing his closeness to Dr Jonathan, Professor King has carried on with his name-dropping enterprise and claimed that Dr Jonathan wants to use him to hound Governor Godswill Akpabio, whom, he added, 'the President is not happy with.'

Political watchers in Akwa Ibom State say Professor King's antics fall within a well known pattern. They say King's current name-dropping campaign is not the first time he would take actions to undermine Governor Akpabio and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Akwa Ibom State. 'It should not be forgotten,' a source said, 'that in 2011 Professor King sponsored his brother, Steve Akpan, to run against Akpabio in the Governorship election. At that time King also boasted that he had the backing of the Presidency.'

King is a professor of zoology at the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State.

He is on leave of absence from the university, and currently works at the Presidency on a committee set up to monitor projects execution by the NDDC, a development intervention agency of the federal government for the Niger Delta region.