Cross River State governor, Professor Ben Ayade, had been in the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) all his political life in the current democratic dispensation, and through that, had been a senator of the federal republic and governor for a second tenure.
But he ported recently to the rival All Progressives Congress (APC), citing as his reasons, the character of President Muhammadu Buhari and the realisation that Cross River has been emasculated economically following the ceding of its oil wells years ago. He said it was necessary to move the state to the centre, possibly with the hope of having both the economic emasculation of the state and the oil wells taken from it reversed.
His words: “Having seen and known the president of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and his commitment to this country, his nationalistic disposition and all the efforts he has made to bring Nigeria to where we are today, it is obvious that at this point we needed to join hands with him to build a Nigeria that we can be proud.
We need all governors to recognise that it is not party that matters; It is character; it is honour; it is commitment to the vision of this great nation. We all need to, as a team, work ahead of the president by working towards building a prosperous country that the succession worries of 2023 will come without the fears and the worries the international community has for us. I believe that if every one of us as governor joins hands with Mr President, I think we can sit on the same dining table and fashion out a way to govern this country.”
But analysts have noted that if Ayade spoke of the need to deemphasise partisanship in cooperating with the centre, he could as well have done so without necessarily defecting from one political party to another. Yet, it had been observed that the Cross River State governor had demonstrated over time that he was uncomfortable in the PDP, given his long-term positive disposition to President Buhari at a time that the PDP had an axe to grind with the president.
Ayade was observed to have become more and more aloof from the PDP soon after emerging governor in 2015, while at the same time being cosy towards the president. Therefore, there was little surprise in the PDP when he eventually announced his departure despite the late hour efforts by PDP governors to convince him to stay.
Senator Liyel Imoke, who is Ayade’s immediate predecessor in office, said that much. He noted that while the governor’s exit from the PDP is a regrettable action, it was not a surprise after all to the party. “While being rather regrettable, it does not come to us as a surprise. We join the national party (PDP leadership) to wish him well in his new political found adventure,” Imoke said in his reaction to the defection.
The defection of Ayade also engaged a critical review by another former governor of Cross River, Donald Duke. He described the defection of the incumbent governor to the APC as “a rather unfortunate decision for which I neither support nor condemn, as I’m not privy to the details except his complaints of being stifled and unappreciated by the leadership of the party and certain elements of Cross River State origin at Abuja.”
He expatiated on the development, which sent tongues wagging moments after the governor broke ranks with the PDP. According to Duke, “The very top-down political style we fought against prior to 1999, instead of consultation, accommodation and inclusion reared its head to the extent that founding members of the party in the state, including former state chairmen, senators, members of the National Assembly and I, over time, opted out and this attrition has continued unabated to the extent that the governor himself has left to seek pasture elsewhere.”
He suggested the way forward under the new dispensation for the party in the state, advocating a return to the principles and ideals of the founding fathers. He recalled: “In Cross River State, we took on the establishment and won a razor thin victory in 1999, but through firm and adroit leadership and adherence to the democratic principles of inclusion, we soon brought largely all the political class in the state under the PDP and by 2007, we were perhaps the most PDP state in Nigeria.
“However, post 2007, the party’s fortune started ebbing. An autocratic leadership style emerged, communication with its followers declined and emergence in the party was determined largely not by the party constitution or structures but by the whims of the State’s Chief Executive.
“This is the structure Governor Ayade inherited and has largely led us to where we are today. The very top-down political style we fought against prior 1999, instead of consultation, accommodation and inclusion reared its head to the extent that founding members of the party in the state including former state chairmen, Senators, members of the National Assembly and I, over time opted out and this attrition has continued unabated to the extent that the governor himself has left to seek pasture elsewhere.”
APC governors led by Bala Mai Buni, who is the interim national leader of the ruling party, obviously read the intention of the Cross River governor and moved on to crystallise it with the last meeting in Calabar, which was the precursor to the public announcement of the defection by Ayade.
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However, since the move, speculations have continued to mount as to Ayade’s real motivation. Some have said that the apostle of budgets of Infinite Transposition, Kinetic Crystallization, Quabalistic Densification, Olimpotic Meritemasis and Blush and Bliss quit the PDP because he had its structures seized from him. He would, therefore, not be expected to fold his arms and watch when he thinks his ambition beyond governorship is in jeopardy.
Political watchers see similarities between Ayade’s condition in the PDP and those of Governor Dave Umahi of Ebonyi State and a former Akwa Ibom State governor, Senator Godswill Akpabio. They, too, were thought to have moved to the APC in pursuant of self-preservation. The difference is that Akpabio and Umahi seemingly joined the APC while it was yet a settled party, but Ayade is coming on board at a time the party is fraught with party control intrigues.
But in Ayade’s defection, some observers are seeing a Bola Tinubu angle. They claim that the anti-Tinubu governors’ camp are intent on swelling their number to give them the leverage going into the contest for the 2023 presidential ticket of the party. Their deduction is apparently from the composition of the group of APC governors that met Ayade in Calabar prior to the defection announcement.
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They are the APC leader and governor of Yobe State, Mala Buni; the Ekiti State Governor, Kayode Fayemi; Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau state; Governor Atiku Bagudu of Kebbi State, Governor Abubakar Badaru of Jigawa State and Governor Hope Uzodinma Imo State. These are thought to be the arrowheads of the opposition to the Tinubu presidential ambition in the APC.
It would appear that they have now succeeded in recruiting the Cross River governor to swell their ranks, which is also believed to include Governors Nasir el-Rufai (Kaduna), Yahaya Bello (Kogi), Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq (Kwara), Abubakar Bello (Niger) and Mohammad Yahaya (Gombe). Apart from the opposition to Tinubu, observers say their support may also come handy should Buni contemplate further extension of the tenure of his national caretaker committee.
Ayade is certain to be loyal to the Buni group if the struggle for the soul of the APC continues. Beyond that, the question has been raised whether he can contribute more to the ruling party. Ayade left the PDP and declared Cross River an APC state, confident that his move to the party would be quickly emulated by most stakeholders in the state PDP. But apart from some members of the state House of Assembly and most of his appointees, the people that make the PDP what it is Cross River have remained unperturbed. It is reminiscent of the Ebonyi State scenario.
Read Also: Ben Ayade Defection: More PDP Governors Set To Join APC – Governor Reveals
Political watchers also draw allusion to the Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, in Rivers State and Akpabio in Akwa Ibom State. Both of them left the PDP with humongous hopes of moving their states to the APC. However, from the results of subsequent elections in their respective states, this did not quite materialise. Observers also now say that Ayade has a gargantuan task to flip Cross Rivers State to the APC in the next election.
But his camp appears to acknowledge that fact, hence the governor has initiated moves to reconcile the main stakeholders in the state chapter of the party that had been immersed in a protracted leadership crisis.
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