2023: C’River PDP Governorship Candidate slams Ayade; Urges security agencies to remain neutral

By Sixtus Uket (Calabar)

Governorship Candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River State, Prof. Sandy Onoh, has again called on the security agencies in the State to sit up and remain neutral as the general elections draw closer.

Prof. Onoh, who is the current Senator representing Cross River State Central Senatorial District made the call Friday, while addressing journalists at the Ernest Etim Bassey Press Centre, Calabar, the State capital.

He also advised the security agencies in the State not to allow themselves to be used to torment innocent citizens.

“Just after our campaign team peacefully left the North,  Ayade led his party into that region and one of the comments we have heard so far from the governor is the allegation that the opposition is planning to import thugs and militants from other parts of the country, to terrorise the state during the general elections. We laughed as we heard this because we know it is exactly what Ayade is planning to do,” he said.

The governorship candidate added that: “The entire state is aware of how Ayade imported thugs and militants into the northern part of the state for the bye-election which held last year. Having realized that his party had woefully lost, he brought in a band of official and unofficial marauders who inflicted mayhem on the electoral officials and seized materials to enable them to distort the figures and then submit same to INEC.

“We already know that he intends to repeat this deadly strategy. Unfortunately for him, the plot is dead on arrival as our people have been sufficiently conscientised to stand up for their rights, and to vote and ensure that their votes count.

“I want to place it on record that Senator Ben Ayade’s unfounded alarm is a strategy to get the police to hound, harass, pursue and arrest our supporters who he intends, for obvious reasons, to keep out of circulation by throwing them into detention and remanding them until after the election.

“His thugs have already started being violent, destroying our billboards, harassing our supporters and causing havoc in the north; the same place we spent about four days campaigning peacefully. Ayade and his party are a violent people.

“One of us, Mr. Peter Akpanke, the PDP candidate for the Obudu/Bekwara/Obanliku Federal Constituency election, is already being hounded by Ayade, with the tacit support of the police and the judiciary, with a mischievous bench warrant, over a murder charge that Akpanke knows nothing about,” he alleged.

“In fact, Akpanke had gone the extra mile to get the police to apprehend the suspect who killed the policeman in question and the suspect has since willingly confessed to the crime. Yet, Ayade is still doing everything to force the police to harass our candidate because defeat now stares him in the face.

“In times like this, the police and the DSS should live up to their professional calling and maintain their non partisanship avowal and do justice to this matter to avoid a breakdown of law and order. The police know the truth and should not allow themselves to be misled by Ayade,” Prof. Onoh advised.

He also called on the State Governor, Prof. Ben Ayade to take deliberate steps to restitute for his sins against the people of Cross River State for about eight years now, rather than chase shadows.

“He still has a few more months to do this. I urge him to get into his closet and do some self-examination before the end of his disastrous tenure.

“The outgoing government has deceived our people enough. We have, for instance, spoken many times against moves by the governor to embark on last minute programmes and projects, including the plan to conduct a recruitment exercise into the state civil service in the twilight of this administration. At best, this is a voodoo exercise meant to curry favour from unsuspecting members of the public,” the PDP Governorship candidate stated.

Prof. Onoh added that the exercise “is one of the antics concocted by the present administration to buy the hearts of the people but unfortunately for them, our people are getting wiser.

“This exercise, if it holds, would end up laced intensely in nepotism, favouritism and sectionalism. It would be purely political and would not meet the genuine needs of the civil service. It is meant to rally troops for the 2023 elections and make the next government look bad by inflicting upon it a wage bill that is unpayable. The timing is wrong, and the motive is completely mischievous and wicked, to say the least.

“Come to think of it, this government has not implemented any promotion since it came on board in 2015. Primary school teachers have not been promoted; there have been no incremental steps since 2016 and many primary school teachers are still being owed backlog of salaries. It is common knowledge that public primary schools in the state do not even have imprest; which is why the teachers use their money, and sometimes find ways of getting money from the pupils, to be able to buy lesson notes and even chalk.

“Indeed, it is armed with this knowledge that I felt so sad when I heard that the governor has approved immediate payment of scholarship to students of Cross River State origin. It is shocking how a government can set out to deliberately hoodwink its own people for purely political purposes and gains,” he noted.