Quote:Udom Emmanuel, Akwa Ibom State governor, has said God and not his predecessor, Godswill Akpabio, discovered and made him governor.

Mr Emmanuel made the claim on Friday at a Victory Thanksgiving Service to thank God for the success of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the concluded 2019 general elections.

POLITICS TIMES recalls that insinuations in some quarters had it that Mr Akpabio brought the banker into politics and ensured he succeeded him in office.

Although Akpabio who represents Akwa Ibom North West at the Senate admitted that truly it was God who made Emmanuel governor of the state in 2015, he said it was him who discovered his successor at a religious gathering in Lagos State.

“I met Udom Emmanuel performing the duties of a deacon in Qua Iboe Church, Surulere. I immediately adjudged that as a deacon, he would superintend over the affairs of the State with the fear of God,” the lawmaker said in a post-election article he wrote on Thursday.

“Whether I was right or wrong is for history to judge. Nevertheless, I picked him to succeed me and by the grace of God and the votes of Akwa Ibom electorates, he won the election. So God made him governor,” Akpabio added.

Denying he was discovered by his predecessor, Emmanuel said it was God who found him worthy to ascend the throne.

“No man shall be able to stop what God has destined for us. As a man, we are not limited by our circumstances, we are limited by our faith in God. As a man, whoever God discovers, no man can cover. God discovered Udom Emmanuel, no man can cover Udom Emmanuel, no stranger can cover Udom Emmanuel,” the governor said.

He pledged to serve the people of the state with all his might, strength, intellect and connection, and make them his priority, adding that God had given the state a new beginning and launched it into a new path.