Cross River State Governor, Professor Benedict Ayade has declared his intentions to join the 2023 Presidential race on the platform of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, following a consultative visit to President Muhammadu Buhari on Tuesday.
Ayade who met with President Buhari behind closed doors said he got a commitment from the President to go ahead and run if he has the qualities, but he must consult widely with leaders of the party from the south-south region.
The Governor who said, he came to seek spiritual and political guidance from the President, on who will take over from him come 2023 for continuity’s sake, said security, economy, electricity and employment will be his focus should he become the President.
Ayade said he will replicate what he did in Cross River, adding that if the Presidency is zoned to the South, he is willing to take up the challenge as the only APC Governor in the South-South.
Reacting to the possibility of former President Goodluck Jonathan also declaring for the Presidency from the same zone and how that would affect his ambition, Ayade said he would gladly support Jonathan if he is the anointed candidate of the party.
According to him, “I have great respect for President Jonathan and so I have no challenges whatsoever.
“I believe that the party leadership will decide on the appropriate candidate that will take our party to victory. And so, if you heard me well, I am just part of the family absolutely loyal to the President, seeking to run for the President. And I am running.
“But at any point in time that the Political leadership of my Party, the APC feels that former President Jonathan is the appropriate candidate that will actually take us to victory, I will turn my support for him.
“I am never, ever going to fight the establishment, the institution, the aristocracy, the spiritual vortex of which God has placed a leader of a country. I will never question the powers of the leader of a country. I have never played a politics of antagonism or fight.
“If you know how I became governor, I became governor by offering to support whoever the governor wants and by stroke of luck, I became the candidate.
“By the same token, I am only here to support the president’s candidate and by a stroke of luck, he said, you too go there and join the race and let me see.”
