By Ogenyi Ogenyi,Uyo
A clergy with the African Church in Akwa Ibom, Revd. Richard Peters has described the position of the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA) on the ongoing legal battle between Governor Umo Eno and Senator Bassey Albert of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) as unfortunate and beclouded by emotions.
Recall that HURIWA’s National Coordinator, Emmanuel Onwubiko, at a press conference, yesterday in Abuja, alleged that the leadership of UNIUYO seized the files of Mr Daniel Akpan, the key witness for the petitioner of Senator Bassey Albert on the orders of the Governor; Umo Eno Baseey who is one of the defendants in the petition filed by Albert.
Peters told newsmen in Uyo yesterday that in legal matters facts remained sacred and faulted HURIWA for acting on skewed information supplied to them by Akpan’s team against the true position of the activities going on at the Governorship Tribunal in Uyo.
He explained that his position was borne out of his sincere desire to correct some wrong impression sold out to the public that the gullible may misconstrue to be truth and further spread the menace.
Peters explained that the matter of alleged forgery of certificate which the petitioner reintroduced at the tribunal was a matter which the Supreme Court had since decided and rested in favor of Pastor Umo Eno stressing that the issue of the petition also proving that the last election was manipulated to favor pastor Umo Eno by INEC has become a mission impossible for the petitioner so far.
“HURIWA should have gone beyond receiving unnecessary emotion laden information from the senator’s team to carrying out thorough investigations on the true on goings at the tribunal. We are all there at the court to see during the cross examination of the petitioner’s witnesses to discover that they were all fake.
“You don’t go to Court with fake witnesses and documents and expect to get favorable judgement. Their star witness Mr. Daniel Akpan who claimed to be a staff of the University of Uyo was publicly disowned by the management of the university as an impostor, the documents he earlier tendered on behalf of the university was also described as fake by the institution’s management at the tribunal.
“The human right group should get involved in more serious matters that genuinely require their attention and not unnecessary political sentiments.
“In the same tribunal, we were all witnesses to the alleged statistician brought by the petition who openly manipulate figures beyond what is in the INEC’s record in different polling units to also favor the petition to the chagrin of all at the tribunal.
“It is also shocking to see that the star witness Mr. Daniel Akpan who claimed to be a staff of University of Uyo paraded Identity card and Integrated Personnel and Payroll Information System (IPPIS) numbers that belonged to other staffs of the institution as his own. Such a man should not be walking around freely in a serious society and his sponsors alleging harassment by the defendant is unfortunate and wickedness on their part.”
Peters maintained that the petitioner has no genuine case before the tribunal but was rather bent on dragging the reputation of the governor to the mud and further distract his administration adding that his latest plot to get the tribunal relocated to Abuja failed because information supplied to the Chief Justice of Nigeria on the insecurity around the venue of the Tribunal sitting was false
