Akwa Ibom Govt bans Solidarity Visits

Akwa Ibom State government has banned all solidarity visits and political rallies to the governor's office till further notice.

This was part of the statement issued through the Commissioner for Information and Social Re-Orientation, Mr. Aniekan Umanah, on the heels of an incident at the Government House, on Friday, when some student groups visited Governor Godswill Akpabio to pledge their support ahead of the general elections next month.

There was pandemonium after the visit when the student groups clashed with the police as a fall-out of the largesse the governor gave them.

At least five students were feared dead and scores of others injured in the incident. The students, drawn from the University of Uyo, Akwa Ibom State Polytechnic, Ikot Osurua, Uyo City Polytechnic and the Akwa Ibom State College of Education, Afaha Nsit, had come to the Government House on the invitation of the state government.

The students, numbering over 7,000 were mobilised to the Government House to show solidarity to Governor Akpabio over his second-term bid, especially as the governorship election is billed to take place in less than a month from now.

There was, however, a pandemonium, when the students who had blocked the main entrance to the Government House got wind of the news that N4 million out of the N10 million donated by the governor was missing.

Investigations disclose that the students became irate when a group, Concerned Students for Godswill Akpabio, allegedly deducted and carted away N4 million from the N10 million released by the governor.

The group was said to have coordinated and secured the release of the money hence reasoned that it should take a percentage of the total sum.

But the students, at first, suspected that the N4 million was stolen by government officials in connivance with police officers who were assigned by the government to monitor the sharing of the money at Christ the King Primary School, situated along Wellington Bassey Way, which led to a free-for-all.

Dissatisfied that the money had been tampered with and fearing that they may not get a reasonable amount after all, the students insisted that the N4 million taken away must be returned.

The hard stance position taken by the students pitted them against the police and other security operatives that manned the gates of the government house resulting in a free for all between the security operatives and the angry students.