Benedict Ayade, former Senator and suave-talking Governor of Cross River State, is one of the few politicians of colour and aesthetics in Nigeria today.
The 53-year-old University of Ibadan-trained microbiologist, and former Delta State University lecturer, who hails from Kakum in Obudu Local Government, Cross River State, first contested on the platform of the PDP as a senator and won a seat in the 7th Senate from 2011 to 2015. He contested on the same platform for the post of governor and won his first and second term in office.
In the last one week, Ben Ayade has been in the news. He recently defected from PDP, Nigeria’s main opposition party, to the ruling party, APC, on 20 May 2021. There have been rumours about Ayade’s defections for almost a year. Probably, he was discussing terms for a safe landing. This explains his high level of confidence as he announced his defection in the midst of some APC governors and party leaders.
Ayade loves to do things differently. It is this flamboyance and radicalism that constitute his huge luggage as he lands in APC. For instance, in unveiling the Cross River State COVID-19 campaign, Ayade surprised observers by rolling out 50 new branded vehicles for the COVID-19 Task Force. This prompted questions on whether he has turned the fight against the pandemic into a carnival with luxury cars.
Ayade’s views on testing and vaccination were equally controversial. He believes that the PCR-Polymerase Chain Reaction Test for COVID-19 is not reliable and should never be used for diagnostic purpose. He believes in what he calls genomic sequencing. He believes that there is no approved international treatment protocol. He is of the view that the Federal Government should fund research and production of vaccine.
Analysts have also raised very critical questions about what they regard as Ayade’s unrealistic budgets and projects. For instance, in his “2018 budget of kinetic crystallisation”, the governor presented N1.3trn, a budget that was higher than the largely unworkable N300bn budget for 2017. Cross River State’s annual Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) then was about N18bn with an annual allocation that was less than N48bn, which made the state’s annual revenue peak at about N66bn. With this kind of revenue, raising the N300bn was difficult and raising the N1.3trn even more difficult.
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Despite the public outcry, the governor in 2018 presented another N1.043trn budget for his “2019 budget of qabalistic densification”. Reports say that the state could not meet the budget targets. In 2019, the governor presented a N1.1trn budget for 2020 for a state with a total revenue that is not up to a quarter of its budget.
Lagos State is the only state with over N1trn budget. The annual IGR of the state at a point was about N500bn, with an annual Federal Allocation of about N120bn. Lagos with its vast economic opportunities can think of a trillion naira budget. Her budget for a fiscal year is about N1.7tr. That amount of money should thus be a no-go-area for a state like Cross River.
Ayade is also known for ambitious and impracticable projects. In 2015, he announced plans to build a 275-km superhighway, with a width of over 250 metres that will take about 5,200 sq km of land. Initially, N800bn was budgeted for the project. The plan generated so much controversy that the governor had to reduce it to N200bn. Work had commenced for the project at a slow pace probably due to financial constraint. It is not only the superhighway that is far from being a finishing point, other “White elephant” projects include the $2b Bakassi Deep Seaport, Calabar-Las Vegas tourist resort called CalasVegas, and the Spaghetti Flyover at Odukpani. None is close to completion till date.
Sources have it that Ayade has been experiencing frustration in PDP in recent times. He fell out with the PDP leadership after he lost control of the party’s structure to members of the National Assembly from his state.
However, Ayade claims that President Buhari’s nationalistic disposition, efforts aimed at building Nigeria, and the need to help his state get better and more economic opportunities by being in a good relationship with the Federal Government are the reasons for his defection.
In reality, some of the reasons why politicians defect in Nigeria, especially to the ruling party are lack of ideological focus, lack of trust in party leadership, internal party wranglings, the need to stay relevant, political witch-hunt, and fear of future prosecution.
The fear of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) in Nigeria is one major reason why politicians defect to the ruling party at the Federal Level. The fear comes from massive corruption, human right abuse, and other misconduct. For the guilty, the fear of EFCC is the beginning of wisdom. Since the ruling party controls the EFCC, they have to defect to the ruling party just to be on the safe side. With the defection of Ayade, APC now has one state in the South-South geopolitical zone. PDP now controls all the remaining five states.
Party defection has implications for national development particularly because the principles of a defector may be different from that of the new party. It also makes a mockery of democracy and negates the values of opposition politics in a democratic system. In other words, it makes it impossible for countries to have viable opposition parties which act as watchdogs for good governance. These are some of the reasons why Ayade’s defection, despite the media excitement it generates, might not be the best for the country’s democracy at these crucial times.