Ayade: My Mission In APC Is To Help Buhari ‘Reduce Tension’ In Nigeria

Cross River State Governor, Ben Ayade, has spoken glowingly of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) despite dumping the party for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday.

Ayade officially made the move when he received six APC governors, including the party’s caretaker chairman, Mai Mala Buni, at the Cross River Government House on Wednesday.

The governor explained why he defected to the APC when he appeared on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Thursday.

Ayade, who praised the PDP for giving him the opportunity to serve in different capacities, noted that his defection from the party was not due to disagreement.

The anchor of the current affairs programme, Seun Okinbaloye, had asked the governor if the APC was a better political party than the PDP.

Ayade responded, “Whether there were issues in PDP? No! The party stood by me all through the way. In any other legal issue that I have had, PDP has stood with me. PDP gave me the opportunity to be a senator; PDP gave me the opportunity to be governor. I would never have any time to pull down PDP.”

The governor said his aim of joining the APC was to help President Muhammadu Buhari “reduce tension” in the country.

“I have integrity, character and honour. My politics have ethics. My decision to join APC is to join the President to reduce the tension in the country.”

Ayade said, “My decision to move has nothing to do with my relationship with the PDP, it has everything to do with my understanding of the challenges of this nation at this time. My respect for the integrity, character and quality of leadership that President Muhammadu Buhari has brought. I feel depressed when the nation is challenged with security issues. Instead of us rising as an orgasmic whole to see how we can support the President to deal with these foreign herders that are colonising our various roads and farms, we rather sit back; we tend to create an impression as if the government is not doing well.

“So, it is therefore not driven by a mere political ideology but the philosophical point that this nation is tending toward the brink of collapse and we must support the President. The reality is that there is a reason for which I have moved is what I have analysed for you…because of my personal relationship with Mr President. The relationship is so strong that, don’t forget, the President’s first working visit was to Cross River State. I am not from the North. I am not a Muslim. I was not in APC. But the President chose my state to visit. I owe him that sense of duty, relationship, that fatherly respect. I have related closely with him and I can see his heart and soul. He is a good man in all total sense.

“Essentially speaking, I am one of those whose political slogan is very clear…Politics with Ethics. I am from Cross River State and Governor of Cross River State. Cross River has been reduced to worse in body, in spirit and in the soul; a state that has lost her territory and oil wells; a state that is among the lowest, 35th out of 36 states, in terms of federal allocation. The only state in the South-South that is completely dislocated from the comity of the oil-producing states. A state that does not get 13 per cent derivation. A state that its monthly income is far less than its cumulative monthly salary. I was hit elected to practise politics but to bring value to my society; to the people who elected me.

“I don’t believe that by this decision, it is disloyal to the party (PDP). Even all through the time I spoke about my defection, I never spoke about PDP. So, for me, APC is the party to go to at this point in time because if this nation does not have a smooth transition in 2023, what we talk about Somalia will be like a child’s play.

“The choice to join APC at this point is based on a nationalistic approach and my commitment to my state; nothing to do with morality or the issue of whether I’m loyal or not to the PDP. Besides, as many people as you see in the PDP, have defected at one time or the other. And many people that you are talking to in APC, who are so committed to this nation, were at some time in PDP.”