Akwa Ibom Governor on rampage!

...Orders radio station to stop transmission of live programme with APC Publicity Secretary

...Era of press censorship, intimidation over- CBO, APC, Journalists

Barely 48 hours after his failed attempt to arrest an APC chieftain and former chairman of Eket LGA, Hon. Aniekan Akpan from Planet Radio, an Uyo based private radio station for criticizing his regime, the Onna born Governor on Monday ordered the station to cut of the Akwa Ibom APC Publicity Secretary, Engr. Ita Awak from a live News and Current Affairs Programme on the station, a action that has been described as an irrational and irresponsible declaration of war against free speech and press censorship that must not be allowed to continue.

Awak who was already live on air in a one hour Team Nigeria programme anchored by Aniekan Udosen was cut off air barely ten minutes into the programme to prevent him from speaking about Udom's one year in office. The former Commissioner for Information while answering questions on Buhari's one year in office described the shocking corruption revelation from the Dasukigate as well as the state of the economy as a direct consequence of the abominable depth at which the PDP plunged and looted the country, a situation he called "uncommon roggery of the PDP chieftains at the national level".

He described as abominable, a situation where by PDP chieftains sat at one corner of Aso Rock to share the money meant for the procurement of arms to fight the Boko Haram insurgency and the same regime turned around to Court Marshall Nigerian soldiers who were only doing asking for better arms to fight the terrorists and declared that in the last one year, the nations anti corruption agencies like the EFCC and ICPC have been very active in retrieving stolen public funds as well as the Presidents call on the judiciary to join hands with the government to sanitize the economy by helping in retrieving stolen funds and convicting those found guilty of looting the public treasury.

But as soon as the APC image maker was about making an analysis of the one year of the State Government and was about  mentioning the name of the Speaker of the Akwa Ibom State House of Assembly, he was cut off on air and the interview terminated. After about eight minutes that he was back on air, Awak told listeners that there was heavy government censorship at the station as he was directed not to mention anything concerning the state government but rather focus on the 17 years of democracy in Nigeria. He rejected moves to censor him and he was again taken off air the second time and the interview terminated. The programme was initially billed to be a one hour live phone in programme from 11am - 12 noon. The programme was off air till noon when it was to end and the station had to play music to fill in the time.

Meanwhile, condemnation has trialed the action of the governor with many warning that consistent attack on the press as well as perceived political opponents puts a moral question on the legitimacy of the regime and the Governors intolerance to dissenting opinion. Efforts to get the reaction of the state government as well as the stations management were unsuccessful as no official was willing to speak on the matter.