The media has been inundated by several tissues of falsehood orchestrated by agents of Senator Bassey Albert, the defeated candidate of Young Progressives Party, YPP in the last Governorship elections in Akwa Ibom State; and this include their vain boasts of relocating the governorship elections appeal tribunal to Abuja on grounds of insecurity in the State.
While we may understand that there is nothing a frustrated man cannot do, just like a drowning man can commit the last of his energy seeking who to drag down with him, we thought Senator Bassey Albert and his wailing YPP should have done everything to avert being predicted in their unskilled scam after their successful failure at the polls and ongoing disgrace at the tribunal.
What could make the so-called political party to wish that the Governorship Tribunal sitting in Akwa Ibom State should be relocated to Abuja when the tribunal is almost winding down.
They feign insecurity whereas the proposed call for relocation, masking the main reasons, being frustration and failure.
The failed candidate, Senator Bassey Albert had seventeen witnesses, and all had testified without being hurt or threatened. No one who has ever come to the tribunal has been reported hurt. The State director general of the campaign organisation of the YPP, Pastor Sunny Ibuot and the State Chairman of the Party, Apostle Nyeneime Andy have been witnessing the tribunal every adjourned date, and there has never been any story of their being molested.
The said Tuesday, June 20, 2023, was the second time their Mr Failure, Senator Bassey Albert had come to the tribunal physically. He had already been led in evidence by his counsel that evening and was meant to appear before the tribunal next morning for completion of cross examination on him by the defense counsel. That is something that could have been achieved within one hour. Is that the only item that the YPP wishes to use and prompt the tribunal to be relocated to Abuja?
Bassey Albert also claims that his vehicle was riddled with bullets, and his supporters attacked, that is not a difficult thing to prove in contemporary society where every handheld phone has a camera. Or did security agents confiscate their phones? Why can’t a single picture of the alleged attack on them be produced?
On the contrary, it was even Senator Albert’s security team that confiscated the camera of a photo-journalist, Mr Daniel Etim, during a recess by the tribunal on the said Tuesday. The journalist only managed to escape the attack dogs who accompanied the senator to the court premises after scaling a fence and running into the police station adjacent to the court premises. It was not until the resumed hearing when the lead counsel to the second defendant, Paul Usoroh, SAN raised the issue with the tribunal, and Bassey Albert reluctantly asked his security personnel to return the camera to the journalist at the directive of the tribunal.
On the day the petition for relocation of tribunal to Abuja was announced, Dr Sunny Usoro, a member of Senator Albert’s legal team who was spotted at the tribunal, pleaded that he came there as a friend of the court and not to represent his client. He also confessed that there was safety in court the previous day. So, what is Bassey Albert and his wailing YPP afraid of?
From the abysmal performance of his star witnesses, the semi-literate alleged staff of the University of Uyo, Mr Daniel Akpan who knew nothing about his employment status or duties in the university, to the so-called statistician who admitted that he was well paid by the wailing YPP to cook up non existent data at the tribunal, it was clear that Senator Bassey Albert knew that his fate was nose-diving hence the oven of frustration has caused them the devilish initiative of wanting a tribunal that they are practically done with, to be relocated to Abuja.
Perhaps they believe help can come the way of the dying cow in its last kicks of failure through what they are touting as Abuja connections.
We call on all well-meaning people to disregard the lies and wails of the YPP which are meant to delay the judgement of the tribunal. It is only a frustrated team like the ones under the name of YPP that will call for the shift of the goal-posts in the middle of the game. They should be made to know that they are in a frolic of their own, and be allowed to sink alone. Let the tribunal do their work where they are. There is no iota of truth in the insecurity propaganda of the YPP. It is a figment of Senator Bassey Albert’s imagination, induced by failure from polls to imminent failure in the court.
Barr Stephen Abia
National Coordinator
