The Akwa Ibom State Government has debunked media reports that it spent about N4 billion on 28th anniversary ceremony of the state, describing the reports as deliberate falsehood.
The state’s Commissioner for Information and Communications, Aniekan Umanah who briefed newsmen in his office said the originators are out to misinform the people with a view to achieve negative ends, describing them as political jobbers.
Speaking further, Umanah said the said amount was not spent on the anniversary, which Governor Udom Emmanuel also used to launch the state’s new moral transformation and reorientation Campaign, Dakkada.
Umanah also rebuffed claims that the contracts given out for the execution of the celebration was awarded to non-indigenes saying that the “purveyors of the falsehood are not attuned with facts of the matter.”
He said that the consultancy firm, which handled the media campaign for the Dakkada launch, “is owned by an Akwa Ibom indigene from Etinan local government area.” According to him, “at the risk of sounding immodest, even when it is not an offence, no external group was engaged in the execution of the anniversary events.”
Mr. Umanah said, with the rehabilitated and re-commissioned Peacock Paint in Etinan; the newly constructed and commissioned blocks at the St. Luke’s Hospital, Anua in Uyo; ongoing construction of over 137km of roads; and several groundbreaking for industrial concerns across the State, “there can be no room for financial mismanagement or wastage in Akwa Ibom State.”
Umanah further enthused that Governor Emmanuel “deserves the support of all and sundry, including those who consider themselves as belonging to the opposition, because Akwa Ibom has arisen to the destiny of greatness, and cannot be stopped.”
