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From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
A former Cross River governor, Prof. Ben Ayade, has said he feels betrayed by President Bola Tinubu’s directive that he abandon his bid for the Cross River North Senate seat but vowed to comply out of loyalty to the presidency.
Prof. Ayade, in a statement on his official Facebook page, said that after a high-level consultation in Abuja, the president asked him to “withhold my Senate ambition”.
“I yield to his request even as I pour tears of ill treatment and agony,” he said.
Ayade alleged that the beneficiaries of the president’s order were the same political opponents who had turned churches against him during the 2023 elections, accusing the APC of an “Islamisation agenda”.
“To be asked to yield the ticket to the same persons that called us Muslims and brandishing guns and machetes at collation centres against us is most traumatizing,” he said.
He claimed to have police records documenting the violence at collation centres on the day of the presidential election.
Ayade said he had played a foundational role in building the APC in the South-South, being the first APC governor in the region. He said he delivered nearly 40,000 votes above the PDP for Tinubu in Cross River in 2023 and had funded the party’s national convention, donated vehicles and motorbikes, and launched a free transport scheme to support the president ahead of 2027.
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He also reminded the president that he was the first APC governor to back Tinubu for the 2023 ticket and originated the slogan, “If Tinubu can fix Lagos, Tinubu can fix Nigeria.”
Despite his grievance, Ayade urged supporters not to purchase nomination forms in defiance of the president’s directive.
Ayade said he had stepped down from Senate and governorship races before, in 2007 and 2015, only to later become a senator and two-term governor.
“I believe in destiny and the hand of God,” he said. “Our show of restraint even in strength is not a weakness.”
He pledged to support all APC candidates if the president insisted on the order, and said he would continue to work with Tinubu and Governor Bassey Otu to deliver the party in Cross River.
Prof. Ayade called on his supporters to remain patient and hopeful, saying, “Our collective heartbreak is well documented in high heavens and those who influenced the president to stop me shall one day be faced with their own karma.”
There has been no formal confirmation of the presidential directive by either the presidency or the national and state leadership of the All Progressives Congress.
Prof. Ben Ayade, former senator representing Cross River North, CRN, in the National Assembly and two-term governor of Cross River State, was poised to square up with the incumbent, Senator Jarigbe Agom, in the APC primaries before the directive.
