Cross River: Jitters In PDP Over APC’s Penetration, Successful Campaign

By Stanley Ekpenyong (South-South Bureau Chief)

A few weeks before the commencement of the 2023 general elections, there are feelers that the leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Cross River state are troubled by the penetration of the All Progressives Congress, APC in the nooks and crannies of the state.

The magazine also gathered that the opposition party is rankled by the unprecedented success the APC recorded in its just concluded campaign in the Northern Senatorial of the district of the state where the governor, Professor Ben Ayade is running as a senatorial candidate on APC’s ticket.

The governor represented the district in the Senate between 2011 and 2015.

Cross River was almost 100 per cent PDP until May 20, 2021, when Governor Ayade defected to the APC and radically altered the political landscape.

On the 11th of February, he will be slugging it out with the PDP candidate and the current Senator representing the senatorial zone in the Senate, Senator Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe who attained his current position through the instrumentality of the Court of Appeal.

Political pundits are, however, predicting a landslide win for the governor given his immense popularity in the senatorial district occasioned by his achievements there.

Daniel Wogor, a PDP chieftain in Yala, one of the council areas in Cross River North told the magazine that “putting partisan politics aside and if truth is to be told, Governor Ayade will record an easy win over our candidate, the support the governor enjoys here is massive. It is obvious Ayade will be returning to the Senate”

Cross River North’s senatorial district boasts of a plethora of industries, an airport, a world-class hospital, and an international university among other projects and infrastructures all made possible by the governor.

Governor Ayade’s popularity and acceptance in Cross River North came to the fore during the APC electioneering campaign there as thousands of enthusiastic residents waving their voters cards and chanting “Ayade Back to the Senate” thronged campaign grounds in the five local government areas that make up the senatorial zone visited.

Monarchs and Chiefs in each of the council areas also gave their royal blessings and endorsements to the governor and other candidates of the party.

Multiple sources close to the Cross River PDP campaign council told this Magazine that the party is weighing several options to counter APC’s penetration as well as the success of its recent campaigns.

“One of the measures we are considering will be the game changer; by the time we are done, the political scale will tip massively in our favour,” one of the sources said.

The Magazines’ findings show that the opposition party will in the coming days set up what it called ward campaign councils.

Every ward in the state, it was gathered, will have a PDP campaign outfit whose duty is to sell the party’s candidates door-to-door akin to the door-to-door and house-house preaching style of the Jehova witness.

Meanwhile, the party’s campaigns have continued to be dogged by the disagreement between the Governor Nyesom Wike-led G-5 faction and the mainstream PDP led by the National Chairman, Iyorchia Ayu and its presidential candidate and former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar.

The party’s gubernatorial candidate, Professor (Senator) Sandy Onor who is funded by Wike is loyal to the River state governor and no mention of Atiku is made in all his campaign tours across the state.

Similarly, the Ayu/Atiku faction in the state is headed by the immediate past governor, Senator Liyel Imoke. The faction has been campaigning for the Atiku/ Okowa presidential ticket but does not campaign for Senator Onor.

Matters came to a head recently at the Bekwara local government area where Senator Onor who currently represents Cross River Central in the Senate and Senator Jarigbe attempted to forge a rally.

However, the rally ended in a fiasco as Senator Onor insisted that Senator Jarigbe, a member of the Atiku/Ayu faction must not campaign for the Atiku/ Okowa ticket.

A furious Jarigbe and his supporters were to walk out of the rally thus bringing the event to an abrupt end.