Ayade denies participating in Cross River North APC senatorial primaries

Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State has denied his alleged participation in the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial primaries in the state.

Governor Ayade, it would be recalled, is one of the 23 APC presidential hopefuls for the party’s presidential primaries slated for June 6 and 7, 2022.

But late Saturday afternoon, a senatorial primaries ‘result’ surfaced in Calabar, the state capital, showing that Ayade lost the Cross River North Senatorial District primaries by 52 votes.

Reacting to the development, Special Adviser, Media and Publicity to the governor, Christian Ita, denied the involvement of his principal in any senatorial contest.

Ita, in a telephone conversation with Sunday Tribune said: “We are preparing for the convention. His Excellency did not contest for any senatorial seat. The video in circulation has just three people. That is not true. We have an official statement to that effect.”

Text of the statement titled: “Governor Ayade didn’t take part in any senatorial primaries” and obtained by Tribune Online read: “The attention of the Cross River State Government has been drawn to a video circulating in cyberspace purporting to be a parallel All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial primaries for Northern Cross River where His Excellency, Professor Ben Ayade was listed as a participant.

“For the avoidance of doubt, we hereby state clearly that Governor Ayade did not take part in any senatorial primaries.

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“His Excellency is a presidential aspirant who will be taking part in the APC presidential convention now slated for June 6.

“We make bold to say that the so-called parallel primary election as contained in the said video was at best a poorly scripted skit comedy shot by three persons sitting in a room.

“The sham video is indeed a joke taken too far. It was a vapid, infantile but failed attempt at manipulation as the clowns behind it tragically forgot to also manufacture ballot boxes, delegates, observers and APC panel members.

“It was a handiwork of political desperadoes who are out to embarrass the governor.

“We wish to assure teeming APC members and supporters, particularly in Northern Cross River, that there was no parallel Senatorial primaries in the district.

“The only valid and recognised senatorial primaries that took place in Ogoja and which was won by the former Chief of Staff to the Governor, Hon Martin Orim and which does not have Ayade on the ballot, was monitored by the INEC and representatives from APC’s National Secretariat.

“The purported video suggesting a parallel exercise should therefore be ignored.”