National Chairman of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Uche Secondus has said that Governor Ben Ayade cannot deliver the All Progressives Congress (APC) in 2023.
Speaking in an enlarged stakeholders meeting in Calabar, Cross River State, Secondus said all the PDP governors would chase away APC from the state.
Secondus arrived Calabar Monday evening to a tumultuous welcome by an unprecedented crowd of supporters at their new state party secretariat.
The PDP leaders included the former Senate president, Bukola Saraki, who was a one-time governor of Kwara State.
Chairman of the PDP Governors’ Forum, Governor of Sokoto State, Waziri Tambuwal, Governor Udom Emmanuel of Akwa Ibom State; deputy governor of Zamfara State, and former deputy presidential candidate of PDP; Peter Obi were some of the dignitaries that were received by two former governors of the state, Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke as well as Efiok Cobham, Imoke’s former deputy, who is now chairman of the state’s caretaker committee.
Secondus said all the 14 PDP governors had earlier in the day met at Uyo, capital of Akwa Ibom State, and decided to make a solidarity stopover in Calabar to send a quit notice to APC and Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State who had recently defected to the national ruling party.
“Our presence in Cross River is a quit notice to Governor Ayade and to re-emphasise that we are well positioned and determined to recover the state from “a party that is bloody; having presided over the slaughtering of Nigerians in their thousands.”
Secondus said they also came to formally receive former governor Donald Duke back to the party, commission the new state party secretariat and inaugurate the caretaker committee headed by former deputy governor of the state, Efiok Cobham.
The national chairman said the PDP is much intact and will certainly recover the state from APC, even as he said they were expecting more APC governors to return to them.
“We are going to recover Cross River from the party of blood, APC. We are well positioned to do so. Let me also reveal to you that a lot of APC governors have indicated that they will soon ‘return home’, adding that Saraki has gone far with them in this regard.
Tambuwal said when they return to national power, they shall restructure the country.
Imoke and Duke who only reconciled their very bitter differences only last week were seen hugging each other and holding hands, exclaiming that they are back to use the trick they used in 1999 to get to power
Both said they have all returned home to make it more formidable.
State party chairman, Cobham said moving to the new massive Secretariat does not indicate that they have given up on their original state Secretariat on Murtala Mohammed highway Calabar but that the new one is only an annex.