Reactions trail ex-NDDC boss, Edem’s revelation

By Jackson Udom - 03.07.2009

REACTIONS have continued to trail the recent revelation by the suspended chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), Ambassador Sam Edem, in which he admitted in court during cross examination that one herbalist, Mathew Sonoma, collected N715 million from him under false pretence.

A group, Akwa Ibom Concerned Elite, in a release signed by Mr. Etim Umoren and Dr. Kufre Akanimoh, president and secretary respectively, described the revelation as “a vindication of the state governor, Chief Godswill Akpabio, who had been accused by the susppended NDDC boss as being the one behind his travails.”

According to the group, “with the current revelations in the court, we are worried about the role of Governor Akpabio in the whole mess. “When the issue of fetishness on the part of Edem was made public, Edem and others went to the streets, saying that the whole thing was political and was an attempt by the governor to rubbish prominent Ibibio sons and daughters, because of his return bid in 2011.”

It stated further that “what we want Edem to tell the whole world and the good people of Akwa Ibom State is what the payment of N715 million to the herbalist for the restoration of his dead manhood had to do with politics.

“Is it part of the political war that he said Akpabio was waging against him that led him to cough out such an outrageous amount for the restoration of his manhood?”

In another development, a group, Youth Exploits, has advised the former embattled NDDC boss to turn to God and seek for forgiveness on the various sins he had committed against the people of Akwa Ibom State.