Peter Offem Ubi|8 August 2017
The case against Ayade's return in 2019 look easy to make -no substantial impact on the state economy since he took office. Infact the state is more indebted 2 years later than when he inherited it. The people are less hopeful in Ayade today than when he first came in with the vigor of youthfulness. And with recent news on freezing out the State Accounts, things could even become more worse off for the people, making Ayade a very vulnerable candidate for PDP to present at the general election.
But inspite of Ayade's dark gathering clouds, he wouldn't be easily ran of the electoral road. The power of incumbency still holds authority in the Nigerian equation. And Ayade sure do have millions already in his campaign coffers to dry out his opponents. Our people still depend on stomach infrastructure to which Ayade has taken advantage on to feed a lot of people through his supposed "putting food on the table" appointments across the state.
Though Cross River State is largely PDP like Lagos which is APC -the PDP has mastered the act of winning elections in Cross River -they know how to deploy on the ground electoral infrastructure and run a race that will always fit the mold of winning the state. APC -my political party has not show the kind of brilliance demanded of an opposition party to pull down the electoral infrastructures of the PDP -simply put -APC will need to change the electoral demographics against PDP which they have failed to do from day one of the Ayade administration.
For now, I haven't seen the 'it' factor with my party. There isn't that thing that makes people think, 'yeah, APC can do it.' We never formed an alternative administration through the APC State chapter or the last APC Gubernatorial candidate as a lead spoke person to take on Ayade on every policy initiative, rather, we abandoned the struggle to individual members (lone ranger) of the party at the grassroots taking on the Ayade government. This of course led the likes of Ifere Paul, Ud Ofem Joseph Odok, Venatius Ikem, Inyali Peter, myself, and scourge of others to become vulnerable targets. The use of intimidation tactics and blackmailing was deployed to bring down those who challenged the seating government.
What we must do now is three folds:
Firstly -we must get the house in order before presenting a united front with a more appealing but hardliner candidate to take on the Ayade's machine.
Secondly -we must avoid a primary in other not to run the risk of suppressing support amongst the various insiders groups -the potentially good candidate must be a known influential individual -someone who has a story that can appeal to the hopes of Cross Riverians with a case on all the vulnerability and dangers Ayade possess to the State.
Thirdly -we must author a strategy built on defining the electoral space -we do this by having the state APC chapter present an alternative governing agenda. And we must spend money on media outside of CRBC to have the people educated on what we will do differently. As it stand, we don't have an appealing central government before the people, and we must change that narrative.
Peter Offem Ubi (aka Senator Pee) writes from New York City
