By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – Senators, their aides and journalists attending a 2-day retreat for members of the 10th Senate in Ikot Ekpene, the hometown of President of the Senate, Godswill Akpabio were stranded for hours without accommodation on arrival.
The contingent from Abuja had arrived Uyo at about 7:45 pm on Wednesday after which the senators and others with them embarked on roughly another one hour drive out of Uyo, the capital of Akwa Ibom to Ikot-Ekpene.
But upon their arrival, the rooms available were not enough rooms at the Four Points hotel to take everyone in.
Organizers of the retreat, the National Institute for Legislative and Democratic Studies, NILDS were in total disarray trying to clean up the mess of keeping Senators waiting endlessly at the hotel lobby.
NILDS had made accommodation arrangements for only the Senators, and about 12 resource persons at FourPoints hotel , which is also venue of the retreat.
It however did not take time for tempers to start rising between some NILDS officials and some aides especially those from the Office of the President of the Senate about the sloppy handling of the entire trip starting with the flight from Abuja.
The aides were displeased with arrangement by the Democratic Institute that brought them to Ikot Ekpene without rooms for them in the same hotel with their principals.
The situation was worse for the journalists who were invited by the Office of the President of the Senate to join in the trip to Akwa Ibom for the coverage of the retreat.
Many of them were seen stranded on the couch in the hotel lobby for the night.
