Stop Playing the Ostrich, Group Tells Mary Ekpere

By CrossRiverWatch Admin

A political group, the Cross River Central Fron­tiers, has described the former APC Central Senatorial District aspirant, Barr. Mary Ekpere was one who had been playing the ostrich on mat­ters that involved the party.

In a statement on Friday, the group’s president, Prince Victor Ewa frowned upon the claim by Barr. Mary Ekpere, that APC Central Senatorial Candidate, Rt. Hon. Eteng Williams is the one in court with her is untrue.

According to the group, “While we do not want to join issues with the former Director General of the National Centre for Women Development (NCWD), we believe we must give the public the correct information, the fact on the ground remains that Barr. Ekpere shortly after the fresh primary, again challenged the outcome in suit no. FHC/A45|CS/2377/2022 between Mary Ekpere vs Jonah Eteng Williams and  3 others, through her counsel, B.J Akomolafe, SAN, seeking automatic disqualification of Eteng Williams from participating in the fresh primary election of the Cross River State Central Senatorial District which was conducted on December 17, 2022, as ordered by an Abuja High court (Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/885/2022).

“We recalled that the leader of our party, the highly respected Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu had on December 20, 2022, at the town hall meeting held in Calabar appealed to her and other aggrieved aspirants to drop all court cases for the sake of peace and unity of the party, yet just 10 days later, 30th Day of December 2022, Barr. Ekpere ignored Tinubu’s appeal to file a fresh suit.”

Furthermore, the group said, “Also worthy to note is that our candidate Eteng Williams personally reached out to Mary Ekpere, a day after the fresh primaries and on the new year day, 1st January 2023 appealing for peace and harmony to enable them to work together to achieve victory for the party. It is not in the character of our candidate to exhibit desperation and intolerance.

“Also, Eteng Williams’s Appeal of the Federal High Court judgment was never out of acrimony but to set aside any litigation that may arise after that. Again, for clarity, we wish to state that there was nowhere in Justice Fadima Murtala Aminu High Court’s judgment that ordered for a fresh primary where Eteng Williams was disqualified from participating, the judge directed that all screened and cleared aspirants of the Party should participate in the fresh primaries.

“With the trend of events over the past month, one would have expected that the APC leadership in the State will bring all parties involved to a round table to resolve what should be a family misunderstanding.“

It concluded that “We are displeased by these happenings and distractions caused to our candidate who has already begun his ward-to-ward campaigns in earnest, this distraction is capable of making the party lose elections in the Central Senatorial District. 

“As a group, we plead with Barr. Mary Ekpere to give peace a chance, peace is priceless and in the end, it will be a win-win for Eteng Williams and Mary Ekpere.”