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| Barr. Eyo Ekpo and Governor Ben Ayade |
| 19 March 2019 | Ukorebi Esien
Barr Eyo Ekpo, gubernatorial candidate of the SDP in the just concluded general elections has demonstrated readiness to allow the incumbent governor of Cross River State and acclaimed winner of the 2019 governorship elections in the state , Sen. Prof. Ben Ayade access into his campaign blue print and developmental road map for the state, documents he prepared during his electioneering campaigns.
The former Attorney General of the state who made this known in a press release made available to TDN said his twin documents which comprise the F.R.E.S.H. Manifesto was made public and published via http://eyowillfixit.com/manifesto/download-eyo-ekpo-manifesto/, while a well structured execution plan for achieving the objectives of FRESH in a document titled "Getting The Job Done" has also been published in http://eyowillfixit.com/uncategorized/download-how-we-will-get-the-job-done-in-cross-river/.
The intelligent and eloquent Politician maintained that throughout his campaigns, he demonstrated readiness to create value for the people out of the vast human and natural resources of the State. Stating that from Bekwarra to Bakassi, the people received the core message of #RecoverAndRestore, but sadly, the popular will of the people "was intimidated, subverted and cast aside by vote buying, multiple thumb printing, violence, intimidation and enough malpractices to make a voluminous text, all with election officials looking on helplessly, or in many cases actively collaborating".
He therefore, recommended the governor to access his manifesto and action plan for the state. According to him. "These two documents are still very relevant to Cross River State and I commend them to the Governor of our State, if indeed he is focused on serving the needs of our people".
Eyo Ekpo however, slammed the governor over what he called " Suppression of votes and the peoples will, while he tagged the March 9th elections as 'an "auction"; a bidding war in which public funds were deployed not for the benefit of the citizenry but to satisfy bloated egos and inordinate political ambitions', not an election.
He wondered why the governor would spend public funds to buy votes, political party officials of opponents.
Eyo Ekpo also in his statement passed blames on the state party officials for collaborating with the state government in frustrating his gubernatorial ambitions.
His words; "particularly the State Party Chairman, Chief Eni Ikpi Ibor, who became traitors and betrayers before and on election day, selling us out for such a miserable and paltry mess of pottage". He concluded.
The statement reads in full:
PRESS RELEASE
The events of Saturday, 9th March, in Cross River State cannot in anyway be described as an "election". They were in reality, an "auction"; a bidding war in which public funds were deployed not for the benefit of the citizenry but to satisfy bloated egos and inordinate political ambitions.
Any unbiased follower of our campaign will testify that Cross Riverians appreciated and bought into our #RecoverAndRestore programme. Our F.R.E.S.H. Manifesto was made public early on in the campaign http://eyowillfixit.com/manifesto/download-eyo-ekpo-manifesto/. We also published our execution plan for achieving the objectives of FRESH in a document titled "Getting The Job Done" http://eyowillfixit.com/uncategorized/download-how-we-will-get-the-job-done-in-cross-river/. We demonstrated readiness to create value for our people out of the vast human and natural resources of our State. These two documents are still very relevant to Cross River State and I commend them to the Governor of our State, if indeed he is focused on serving the needs of our people.
From Bekwarra to Bakassi, the core message of #RecoverAndRestore resonated deeply with our people. Sadly, the popular will was intimidated, subverted and cast aside by vote buying, multiple thumb printing, violence, intimidation and enough malpractices to make a voluminous text, all with election officials looking on helplessly, or in many cases actively collaborating. This was compounded by some of my own Party officers, particularly the State Party Chairman, Chief Eni Ikpi Ibor, who became traitors and betrayers before and on election day, selling us out for such a miserable and paltry mess of pottage.
However, if in truth the incumbent had done all the great and good deeds ascribed to him, receiving many endorsements from across the State, what was the need to buy the conscience of citizens, SDP officers and public officials, to suppress votes, to wreak violence and commit electoral malpractices of all sorts?
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