The senator representing Cross River Central Senatorial district in Nigeria’s Senate, Sandy Onoh, has insisted that those of them who believed in the capacity of Cross River State governor, Ben Ayade, to deliver dividends of democracy to the people have since been disappointed. He is also of the added opinion that the governor derailed when he allowed himself to be carried away by ego and self adulation.
Onor who expressed his views as Nigeria marked Democracy Day, recalled how he used to extol the governor when he came up with some lofty signature projects, including the super highway, the spaghetti flyover, the Bakassi deep seaport, the garment factory, projects that looked workable. “I believed in him because I thought he was sincere in his dreams for our state. I had thought we had seen a messiah with the ability to cause a great transformation in our state, based on his statements. But the man has disappointed all of us and I feel terribly disgusted about the way things have nosedived”
Continuing, Onor said he “looked forward to a harvest of mega projects in the state and I was among those who had urged the people to trust in the governor and give him the benefit of the doubt, at a time that many people felt the governor was on the path of perdition. But I was soon to discover that the governor was merely deceiving the people. The people of Cross River have since seen the nakedness of the governor and the governor’s macabre dance on the streets.”
“I am not a pretender. I love my state with all the fibres in me. I want the best for our state; so, I am always ready to support anybody with genuine intentions to move our state forward. My support for and eulogy of Ayade some years ago was premised on the belief that Ayade was going to live to his words. But his actions privately and publicly have made nonsense of that genuine trust. My prayer is that God should touch Ayade’s heart so that he can metamorphose from the failure he is at the moment into the man we all expected him to be when we queued behind him and pledged our unwavering support for his government.”
On this Democracy Day, that is my wish for Ayade and our state. We have suffered enough in his hands. We have seen enough of his deceit. But he can still use the remaining two years to redeem his badly battered image”, he concluded.