‘Ayade should be impeached’

The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2019 governorship election in Cross River State, Mr Eyo Ekpo, says the governor, Prof Ben Ayade, should have been impeached by the House of Assembly, for allegedly committing so many impeachable offences.

Ekpo, a former Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice under Mr. Donald Duke, took a swipe at the State House of Assembly for not initiating impeachment processes already.

He told reporters in Calabar that it was unfortunate that members of the House of Assembly were turning a blind eye to the excesses of the governor while allowing the state to drift.

“Look, we have had four budgets and he has not implemented any of them; he has been spending money without accounting, without publicly accounting for it. Look at how he has been running government, he calls his brother co-governor. His brother has more influence in government than the deputy governor; all these are impeachable offences.

“Unfortunately nobody in the House will make a move to impeach him. Ayade will not and cannot be impeached even if he goes to Watt market and beheads a man in the afternoon,” Ekpo said.

Read Also: Gov. Ayade decries renewed communal clashes, killings in C/River

The governor has been criticised by various person in the state over his unexplained absence from the state despite communal crisis and cult wars which has so far claimed several lives in the last two weeks.

He has also been criticised for his move to arbitrarily acquire about 9,000 hectares of land across the three senatorial districts, which the House of Assembly halted as well as his failure to pay all workers in the state.

Ekpo regretted that the House of Assembly has been finding it difficult to checkmate the excesses of the governor.

“The House of Assembly sees nothing wrong in a governor bringing down the state to this level of ignominy and this is a state where people were looking forward to coming for business, for leisure and pleasure. We have so come to the level where nothing is working anymore in the state, yet we have a House of Assembly,” Ekpo said.