Judex Okoro, Calabar
People Democratic Party (PDP) stakeholders in Cross River have kicked against move by Governor Ben Ayade to reduce the size of his cabinet in his second term.
The stakeholders, cutting across party elders, officials and members in separate interviews in Calabar, unanimously said it is wrong timing and described it as a betrayal of trust for the governor to announce the cabinet reduction publicly barley three weeks after he was given his certificate of return by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Governor Ayade had, on March 29, said: “In my first term I was driven by emotions to put food on the table by expanding government. I will replicate it in my second term. I am going to expand the government much more and nobody is going to lose his job.”
But, on April 18, Ayade announced he would reduce size of cabinet and directed commissioners and others to prepare handover notes and forward to him on or before last Friday.
Chief Press Secretary and Senior Special Assistant on Media, Christian Ita, in a statement, said: “Governor Ayade will run a smaller and tighter cabinet in his second term in office to engender a more focused administration for better service delivery.”
Investigations by Daily Sun revealed that Governor Ayade had about 6,000 aides including 28 commissioners.
However, reacting to the statement, one of the party elders, Emmanuel Agbor, said it was a political miscalculation for the governor to suddenly wake up a few days after the election and announce he would not run a large executive and with retinue of aides in his second term.
Agbor, who hails from Etung Local Government Area and has been a staunch member of the party since 1999, said though Ayade did not give reasons, “such statement is capable of breeding mistrust between him and the electorate who voted for him due to his stomach infrastructure policy of carrying along many families through appointment thereby reducing poverty in the state.”
A party official, who simply gave his name as Ansa Ekpenyong Ansa, from Calabar South, said: “If Ayade prunes down his aides by May 29, it will not augur well with some party leaders who fought to ensure he returns.
“But, let him remember 2023 is around the corner and those who would not make the next cabinet, thereby feeling used and dumped would re-group and fight back. Let him learn from the travails of Imo State Governor, Rochas Okorocha, who refused to appoint board members since 2011 and only inaugurated them after he had failed to install his son-in-law as governor. Throwing such crowd back into the labour market would increase crime rate in the state.”
Also, one of the commissioners, said: “Let us watch and see who and who would be sacrificed after we had used our money and everything at our disposal to fight All Progressives Congress and won.”