REVEALED: “Ayade Was Advised About Jarigbe But He Refused To Listen”

While the shocks of yesterday’s Supreme Court judgement continue to twist and turn the political landscape in Cross River, www.calitown.com has been reliably informed that had state governor, Ben Ayade, listened to wise counsel, he would have masterfully avoided his running political battle with members of the National Assembly from the state, spear headed by Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe.

“I called some people close to Ayade and told them to tell him to let Jarigbe go to the Senate. The reasoning is that within these two years, the governor can sincerely negotiate with Jarigbe, like any sensible politician will do, if he is interested in returning to the senate. Godswill Akpabio did the same thing with Aloysius Etok I think. Akpabio called Etok and told him that he wants to go to the senate, they did some Mathematics and arrived at N4.1bn – which Akpabio reportedly paid him. Etok now said, let my son go to the House of Assembly, HOA, and Akpabio said, let your son hold on a little, let Onofiok Luke finish his second term as HOA member and the deal was done, today Etok’s son is in the HOA. These people went to Ayade and the man refused to even have a meeting with Jarigbe, insisting instead that when he finishes as governor, he will go to the senate for eight years. After the eight years, he will then decide between Jarigbe, Tony Undiandeye, Legor Idagbo, Higgins, Timi Tom and Peter Oie, who will succeed him” one critical stake holder who has elected to remain anonymous revealed.

“I was shocked to hear Ayade sound like a god – you mean he cannot engage in any form of political negotiation because he is lucky to be a governor at this point? Show us that successful politician who jettisons political give and take. His attempt to completely kill Jarigbe’s political career, very early in the morning, is clearly responsible for what you people are witnessing.” Continuing, “I remember that even after the PDP’s National Executive Committee, NEC, Ayade was advised to go and sit down with the national assembly members, he swept that under the carpet. At a National Working Committee, NWC, meeting with Liyel Imoke in attendance, Ayade was asked if he had had consultations with the national assembly members and he said no. What of the House of Assembly members…no. Was there a stakeholders meeting or a caucus one to harmonize the list from CR…no. Sen. Imoke, were you invited to any meeting on this matter…no. Ayade was now asked, how do you arrive at this list and he said the people met individually and at various caucus levels and the list was agreed on. My brother, who are these faceless people? I can tell you for free that a governor who does not take responsibility has no capacity to be trusted by the people. Chris Agara ran election, you couldn’t protect him, even Stephen Odey that you railroaded into this confusion, cannot be protected, it is a pity.”

“See, this is how a normal politician should think. There are three adhoc delegates per LGA, we have councilors, local government chairmen, former speakers of the HOA and their deputies, former governor and deputy, who are all automatic delegates and constitutes about 43% of delegates of any party congress you are going to do. Ordinarily, a governor with five local governments added to this list, can win anything but Ayade cannot because we do not trust him. He doesn’t even understand that this state Exco that he so desperately wants to put in place can only be ‘loyal’ to him for one year and will be too incapacitated to function for him, by the time we finish our convention in November this year, party loyalty will shift to the next man who will take over and that man will not be foisted on the people by Ayade”, he added

“Let me be very plain to you, the governorship of this state is going to the South and there’s nothing he can do about it. If he has foresight, he will calm down and negotiate his way through all of this. See, the South will have a governor, they will have a Senator, three house of reps members, deputy speaker…six key positions, they will be able to sit down and do consensus politics, because it is the right thing to do. Before this fight against Jarigbe drains him of his energy and our collective finances, let the governor not be too proud to put on his thinking cap and negotiate because this state belongs to us all” he concluded.