“You know these people have a difficult job guarding the governor and other top functionaries. Sometimes they work in extreme conditions without time to appropriately rest, it therefore does not surprise me that the young man, after just changing guard, fell backwards, to the ground and people had to rush to his rescue”, our reporter wrote in his report.
Meanwhile, www.calitown.com was also informed that had John Gaul Lebo, Speaker of the Cross River State House of Assembly, not pushed things through, Ukpukpen’s burial would have been out of sorts. ” The Speaker had to marry the three requisition for burial funds, sent in. Based on this effort, a top Ayade aide took a huge amount of money to Ukpukpen’s wife, late in the night and because the money was substantial, she gave them an account to lodge the funds into but a mild protest from some family members blocked that. I am not sure those family members got nothing less than N3 million or so to cover certain expenses. I can’t say if they applied the funds but I know that the House of Assembly intervened, hired canopies, paid for several things I won’t mention and painfully, the man who should be like his father, went to farm while the man was buried”, our source disclosed.
The late legislator’s wife was escorted to the burial by a special contingent of soldiers expressly brought in to protect her. She left Obudu shortly after her husband’s remains were interred. We can authoritatively reveal that the www.calitown.com reporter sighted the stern looking soldiers, menacingly keeping watch over the woman and her immediate family members.
Again, it was amazing to see the convoy of CRS governor, Ben Ayade, break protocol and make two stops, one at the Obubra junction and the second at Ekori junction, for refuelling. Felix Etaba, spoken to at Obubra junction wondered why the governor’s protocol people did not refuel the vehicles while the governor was attending the burial ceremony in Obudu. But government sources contacted maintain that “nothing restricts the governor from fuelling or refuelling anywhere, especially in a state like ours where the governor is liked and appreciated.”
