Pastor Umo Eno joins Akwa Ibom governorship race

A PDP governorship aspirant in Akwa Ibom, Pastor Umo Eno, has said that he will win the 2023 gubernatorial poll with the support of the people.

Eno stated this on Thursday while speaking with newsmen shortly after obtaining the N21m expression of interest and nomination forms at the party’s secretariat in Abuja.

He said that the people of the state would support him because they believed in his capacity and vision.

“When people believe in your vision, believe in your aspiration, they will endorse it. Just like I am being endorsed, other people also have been endorsed. It is a normal thing in a political process,” he said.

Eno dismissed insinuations that his endorsement by Gov. Udom Emmanuel would make the race for the party ticket difficult for other aspirants.

“Gov. Emmanuel has many children, and it is only the governor that can tell the capacity of each of his children. His other sons will not know what has endeared me to him, but rest assured that the governor also has a choice to make.”

“He has interviewed everybody and as someone who is in office and who knows the enormity of the work to be done, you will understand that he must have done it (endorsement) from the information, intelligence, and other things that are available to him,” Eno said.

Meanwhile, some professionals and businessmen from Akwa Ibom have condemned what they called the resort to smear campaign against Gov. Emmanuel by an unnamed governorship aspirant “who is embittered over his rejection as the preferred successor to the governor.”

The group, under the umbrella of Professionals for Development in Akwa Ibom, made the condemnation at a press conference addressed by its National Co-ordinator, Mr. Ufot Umoren, in Abuja on Thursday.

Umoren advised the said governorship aspirant to desist from utterances and actions capable of threatening the peaceful co-existence of the people of the state.

He said that the group would not hesitate to engage the said aspirant if he continued to drag the name of the governor in the mud for his “selfish reasons.”