Kelvin Obambon|16 February 2020
The Young Progressive Party(YPP) in Cross River has charged the state governor, Senator Ben Ayade to gird up for the task of moving the state forward NEGROIDHAVEN can say authoritatively.
The party gave the charge on Friday in a press release announcing the resignation of Mr Castro Ezama as state chairman and his subsequent exit from the party, following his readiness to take up appointment from the People's Democratic Party-led state government.
While joining the call for the overhaul of the of nation's security architecture, the new state chairman, Mr Anthony Bisong Attah, said that the party would be reposition for the 2023 elections in the state.
He also disclosed that YPP would from three months time commence massive registration of new members across the state.
The statement read in full: 'I welcome you all to this historic moment in the political history of Cross River State. We are gathered here today to formally intimate the general public that our former state party Chairman, Castro Ezama has resigned from his position as Chairman and member of the party. We thank him for his stewardship and wish him well in his future political endeavours.
'It could be recalled that four years ago when Young Democratic Party was formally recognized by the INEC as a political party, I had the singular privilege of midwifing the birth of the first ever youth affiliated political party to CRS. I rallied a great company of young men and women to kickstart a new political orientation in the state. When the party got enmeshed in crisis, I joined the progressive wing of the party under our great leader and National Chairman, Bishop Amakiri to register the YPP. To God’s glory, on the 7th of June, 2017, YPP was formally registered by INEC and again, I led the launch of the party in the state.
'YPP remains the assemblage of Progressives with an altruistic mission to salvage Nigeria by offering genuine and transparent accountability in governance with tangible, concrete, cogent and compelling dividends of democracy to the people of Nigeria. In saner climes, by now our two big brothers from the two big parties but same parents should have apologized to Nigerians for destroying our great country for over 20 years now. Going forward, I urge them to take a bow and leave the political landscape in 2023 as a way of atoning for their sins to enable the younger generation salvage the nation.
'Today, I embrace wholeheartedly another challenging opportunity to serve my state and nation as the state Chairman of YPP. This assignment is peculiar to me in many ways. There has been a yawning gap in the provision of political opposition in CRS. With political parties either wining and dining with the ruling party or engaging in internal wrangling, the ruling PDP has had a field day in our dear State with the governor as an emperor without anyone to offer a variant political position in the state. It is even more alarming to note that there is near absence of CSOs in the state and worse still the media in CRS is in coma. This simply means a total ‘carry go’ or smooth ride for the government which is a fodder for dictatorship and totalitarianism. This lacuna portends a terrible danger to democracy and a cog in the wheels of good governance in CRS.
'Coming from the background of academics, CSO and grassroots political orientation, I believe that with the right people around, we will be well on track to kickstart a movement that will change the status ante in our state. My assignment therefore is to identify, mobilise and galvanize public spirited individuals to launch a new political order in CRS. When this is done, we will be able to obstruct the traditional political permutations and redefine the political structure of the state.
"As we approach 2023 general election, it is important to reflect on what transpired in the last election in our state and our party particularly. During the last election, individuals in the party due to political exigencies formed alignment with other parties. This coalition actually dented the image of the party because it presented the party as an appendage of the affiliate parties. However, I’m glad to announce to you today that all such alignments, coalition, mingling and commingling ended with the last election. Going forward, we are entering into a new alignment and this time, it is alignment with the masses, the man/woman on the street, the market women, the youths, students, elders, those in IDP camps, the Physically challenged and those who have been constantly locked outside the corridors of power. We are going to expand the frontiers of our political relationship by walking and working with the PEOPLE, the masses.
'On the strength of the forgoing, permit me to quickly remind you that the slogan of our party is SERVICE TO THE PEOPLE. It is our believe that for you to truly serve the people, you cannot make a choice of who to serve. Our party is not an elites club for extraordinary people but an association of ordinary people whose desire is to accomplish extraordinary things for the good of the society. Again, may I inform you that our party logo is an open door, that’s why we are opening the political landscape to accommodate all Nigerians who intend to contribute to national development through service to Humanity.
'In the next 3 to 6 months, we intend to engage in registration of new members from where we will also elect able and capable hands to offer leadership from the Ward, Local Government Chapters and State respectively. With this in mind, we therefore send a strong message to Perigrinor House that the occupant, the Governor of CRS should sit up. After almost 5 years of globetrotting and signing of almost 100 MOUs, we urge the governor to immediately return back to work by taking the front seat to drive this state to a safe harbour. We cannot continue to wait for foreign partnership while little details of governance suffer helplessly. Let our street light start working now, let water board start supplying water, let the youths be meaningfully engaged by boosting SMEs instead of the sectional partisan food on the table appointment mantra, we demand for the return of about 2500 civil servants purportedly sacked since September last year and we urge the Governor to pay minimum wage to civil servants. While we commend the Governor for his industrialization drive, we strongly urge him to concentrate on what he can possibly accomplish within the three years left of his tenure as Governor. We hasten to remind the Governor that nobody celebrates an uncompleted building no matter how nice the architectural design may look. We demand more transparency in government as we plan to launch the ‘Open the Book Initiative’, a plan intended to demand relevant documents from MDAs to access government policies and projects. As a political party, we will commend governments at all levels when they do what is right and condemn government when they get it wrong.
'I also like to use this platform to ask President MBuhari to fire all Service Chiefs with unaccustomed alacrity as they have demonstrated incapacity and incompetence in their prosecution of the war against insurgency in Nigeria. I also urge the people of South South geopolitical zone to immediately establish a formidable regional security outfit to combat the raging menace of insecurity in the country. Lastly, I implore the President to immediately initiate a template for the restructuring of Nigeria as well as sign the Electoral Amendment Bill forthwith.
'Finally, ladies and gentlemen, let me use this opportunity to announce that the 48 hours given to the Chairman of CROSIEC to reverse his decision to disenfranchise opposition parties in the forthcoming Local Government election by demanding humongous pay from candidates has elapsed today and the party will approach the courts on Monday to demand that our candidates, having met all the requirements for elections are allowed to participate in the election.
'Let me end this press conference by informing the general public of my intentions to drop my designation as Chairman of the party in the state. I choose to be addressed as the Chief Servant of the party in CRS.
Thank you so much for coming and God bless you.
Comrade Anthony Bissong Attah
Chief Servant, YPP, CRS."
