Emmanuel Ibeshi, former National Publicity Secretary of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), is a governorship aspirant of the party in Cross River State for the 2019 election. He spoke with NSA GILL on why the incumbent governor, Benedict Ayade should not be given a second term ticket. Excerpt:
You are challenging Governor Benedict Ayade for the governorship ticket of PDP in 2019 at the time many endorsements were given to him, an indication that he may get the party’s automatic ticket. Do you really want to block his chances?
PDP does not give automatic tickets. If you take a look at our party’s constitution, there is nothing like automatic ticket. What we have is primary elections. There is always a winner of the primaries. There must be primaries. There have always been primaries. Even when you do not have an opposing candidate, there is always an election which is counted for and returned. There is nothing like automatic ticket for anybody. If you say, endorsement, anybody can get endorsement. That is not an issue at all.
There has been a reported vandalisation of one of your campaign offices in Calabar. How concerned are you over the development?
If you know how long I have been in politics, you will know that I cannot be deterred by such. These are things we see regularly. It is not an issue at all. It only shows the extent of fear by whoever did that. They are just afraid of their own shadows and it is so cowardly to do a thing like that. The posters did not do anything to you. Those are inanimate objects. Anybody who goes to fight an inanimate object is just a coward. At this stage, if people still go and do those kinds of things, then they are not ready. Their minds and brain need to be examined.
Why are you determined to contest against Governor Ayade when he flaunts a number of things as his achievements within his first term?
If you live in Cross River and know what has been on ground over the years since 1999 when Donald Duke took up governance and laid the foundation and followed by Liyel Imoke, the three and half years of Governor Ayade, does it look like the Cross River of our dream? The state is no longer the Cross River we dreamt about when Donald Duke came up with a foundation that put us in a global picture.
Does the Calabar you knew during Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke eras look like the same Calabar many boasted of? What is there to say that this is the state we dreamt about? Look at our clean and green status. Look at the state of our education. Look at the civil service that has been so bastardised. We have 6,000+ appointees. What type of civil service is that? What has not been destroyed so far in Cross River under Ayade?
You may say things are destroyed. But, others can point at some things being built, like the industrialisation the government claims to be driving with the recent commissioning of the rice seedling factory by President Muhamadu Buhari…
(Cuts in) Industrialisation to what? What is the blueprint of the industrialisation? Cross River State was the first EPZ designated area in the country and that was one of the reasons Donald Duke created Tinapa to facilitate and compliment the EPZ. One of the things that are purposed to make Tinapa functional is industrialisation which is technically a value added advantage to the EPZ status. This goes with the various agricultural value chain laid down. This is a systematic thing, a policy thrust; something that you have a partnership with investors who come in and look at the opportunities that will create production for a Tinapa to exist and for EPZ to be resurrected. It is not a wishful thinking, it is a carefully thought out process.
You don’t wake up overnight and come out with toys and bring the President to commission it and you call it anything. Have you ever seen rice production in Calabar? You don’t wake up overnight and come up with infantile things and tell people what excites you. If you want to create sectoral zones and feed zones, where you have capacity to produce crops and process crops, and turn them into finished goods, there are specific areas that you can site industries that can create that.
These are policy thrusts which go on to attract investors that can identify with those specific crops that can go from planting to processing to executing export processing facilities. These are spread across the state from north to central down to the south. You can find, from banana to rubber, to groundnut, to palm oil, to rice, to cassava, etc, many.
You can find the catchment areas for you to be able to spread development to the rural areas, where these areas can create small communities of production that can bring enough employment to the youths; you go and begin to do infantile things that do not count.
Your submissions show clearly one who is really disappointed with the performance of Gov. Ayade. Yet, it could be recalled that in the early days of the administration, you were one of those around him and identified as adviser. What happened that your advices were not taken?
If you know me and have followed my politics, I am not somebody who will just want to jump up to anything. If the governor were to be listening to advice, there are more than enough capable advisers in Cross River State. To continue from where the right platform for economic development for Cross River State had been clearly laid down by Donald Duke, clearly followed up by Imoke, government is a continuum, which means, we should have continued in that laid down strategy for economic development and the blueprint of the state.
But, that is not what we have right now. The indigenes should now be asking themselves: Is this what we bargained for? This is taking us years behind. A clergy, Bishop Josef Bassey, recently spelled it out clearly that the governor doesn’t deserve a second term in office. And his points were clear. We are talking about the development of Cross River State, and the final outcome of governance is all-inclusive and it is supposed to be looking at the welfare and the security of lives and properties of people in the state. The education of our young ones and the mentoring of these young ones to take over when we are gone. The clergy mentioned issues on points as they were. We count on the media to be able to shape all these views without fear or favour, report what is supposed to be reported and let people decide for themselves if the governor deserves a second term in anyway.
Not only that, people in the state should be a little bit sympathetic to Cross River North where this governor comes from. It becomes more painful that for the first time they have an opportunity to occupy the Government House, we are having this kind of disaster. It is unfortunate.
If you go to the North, they are the ones crying loudest. The roads in the Northern Cross River, right from Ogoja to Obudu have all been bulldozed and nothing done. People’s houses have been broken down with no compensation. There is no public power supply in Obudu. When Donald Duke was governor, did you not see access roads being opened here and there? When Imoke came and took over, many other access roads to rural areas that Donald Duke could not reach, were reached and attended to. I mean it. When I say Northern Cross River is weeping, I also mean it, as I appeal that other parts of the state should pity us.
What is your view on the argument that any other person from the north may not do one term for those who believe there is a form of zoning in the state. Are you coming for a single term in office as some people expect?
All the zones, though statutorily unwritten, have the opportunity to do a two-term in office. This is still an un-written understanding, which the north, succeeding with the other two zones, would allow them change whoever is sitting there as governor now to enable them complete the second term. It should be in character and in the spirit of understanding with other zones. I do not see how the north will not want to put anybody with integrity to stand by that understanding. That aside, my problem again in all of these is those who are afraid of the north having somebody who would probably do more than one term. Tomorrow is in nobody’s hand. If we are afraid of tomorrow, when today is being destroyed, are we sure that tomorrow will be even better? That is the point.
We have come to a stage where, rather than allow people choose leadership for us, the south, the central and the north must come together and have a holistic arrangement where they must create an opportunity for the right leadership recruitment process, so that from day one, when somebody is sitting in that office, they should already know the capacity and the ability of a successor who will be able to implement laid down infrastructure, economic structure, political structure where south, central and the north are partakers. And it is not hijacked by anyone. Something that the entire Cross River owns. With that, it will be very easy for us to agree as to who sits on that seat. The person should be capable and available and accountable to the people.
The post Why Gov Ayade Cannot Get Automatic Ticket In PDP – Ibeshi appeared first on Independent Newspapers Nigeria.
Source: Daily Independent
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