By Inibehe Udosen
The impunity of the APC governorship candidate Mr Umana Umana has gone from soar to sour, as he effected the arrest of a journalist in Akwa Ibom State Gideon Ekere the publisher of Global Post Newspaper.
Authoritative sources reveal that Gideon is one of the fake newspaper boys that Umana Umana hired to smear and tarnish the reputation of the Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel.
However the two fell out when Gideon repeatedly threaten to expose Umana Umana following the latter’s inability to meet his demands in recent times.
Our reporter gathered that unfavorable news coming in from the tribunal has put the APC governorship contender in deep crises and he has since become hostile with all his personal staff, blaming their inefficiency for his woes.
“Those who know oga very well, know that he does not like to be disturbed over money when he is not so happy,” the source confided with us that, Umana decided to use his connection with the DSS to effect Gideon arrest, when Gideon threatened to exposed blackmails against PDP and Udom Emmanuel.
The fear observed by Ekere was the possibility of Umana losing at the elections tribunal, which will make it impossible for anyone to get anything from him again, especially those he had promised big car gifts before the swearing in of the Governor, Mr Udom Emmanuel.
“Everyone knows that oga (Umana) has the DSS in his pocket and he calls the shots as far the service is concerned in this state. So he asked them to arrest that boy and deal with him so that he will learn his lesson.”
However the intervention of the State NUJ chairman Mr Patrick Albert who insisted that the security agency had no right to detain a journalist above 24 hours, especially in an issue as petty and flimsy as Umana’s petition.
It could be recalled that Mr Umana Umana had boasted that he had bought over the DSS and could use the force to score his political points, while his associate Senator Ita Enang had said that the DSS has the full right to harass and intimidate anybody including the Governor at any time of the day.
Gideon’s stable, Global Post, had been sponsored to allege several negative campaigns at Udom Emanuel’s administration on Global Post Newspaper, including accusing the governor of murder, rape and bribery.
