 Defection hits the APCS. 5,000 members defect to the PDP in Cross River and we're going to be talking about the civic and the civic space and the media and of course we'll be having guests in the studio to talk about it for 2023. It's cross politics. I am Mary Anna Colby. The battle for the soul of Cross River State has continued to gather momentum as about 5,000 all-progressive congress APC members have defected to the People's Democratic Party PDP in the northern senatorial district. One of the defectors and a former chapter treasurer of the APC in Obudu, Aghim Joseph Aghim, said they came back to the PDP because of the love for Senator Jarebe and to be part of the success story ahead of 2023. Joining us to discuss this is the PDP party chairman in Cross River State, Venasius Ekam. It's good to have you join us Mr Ekam. Thank you very much. Nice to meet you again. Great. Let's start by looking at what's happening in the PDP. Now we also know that the PDP has a governorship candidate who picked a woman as his running mate. Many had said that it would be a two-horse race even though we've also seen defections from the PDP into the Labour Party. But let's talk about these defections. We know that this is a political season and a lot is happening. What does this signal for the party going forward to 2023? Thank you very much for having me. The PDP cross river state has, we would like to think everybody knows that we are standing in the post position to win the next general election. That's why it's the governor for people, wherever he is, they are protecting. Cross river state, it's PDP and PDP cross river state. It's a surprise where sometimes the news media found that people, whatever is happening here now, they need to be following it. It actually is not. It's something where I used to and would take for granted. The reality is that because I had the administration I saw deceived everybody that down to his village. I thought we left the party. So many who took out to become from the party. There's actually nothing concrete on the ground for anybody to celebrate. I thought everybody is looking for the next administration to be the only authentic thing that we have on the scene. And like you said, of course, we can actually say it's going to be too much because of the presence of the government. Otherwise, maybe we don't have just PDP as they usually eat. So for all, I think as a party, I can, some might just say that we did the right thing. We allowed democracy to prevail. People selected the candidates of the authorities across board. In some cases, people even won elections by one, just one vote, two votes, three votes, eight votes and all that. You could pick clearly that there was a demonstration of absolute freedom of choice. So when you have that, usually, you will have candidates that have a popular appeal. And again, you may not, you will not have many people who feel disaffected by the system. One, two, three, say and transfer as they have. And so the momentum is quite high coming from the Congress and we are poised to win our elections at every level. Before we go to the elections proper and what to expect, let's talk about the role that the PDP has played in this state because you complained about the governorship of the governance of Senator Ben Ayade. But the PDP has been in that state. Don't forget, he came from you before he defected to the APC. One would say that or one would wonder how the PDP came up with a governor of this nature. And now you're saying because he's in the PDP, people are tired of him. But he did come from amongst you. And why should we trust that the PDP would be able to give us a governor who would not also turn out to be another Ben Ayade? No, no, no, no. You know, Ayade, we do respect the new recruit PDP, for example, by whatever happens then. But I think the PDP has learned his lessons from his experience. The candidate to refuse you is a grounded politician. He has been the chairman of Kamsun. He has been the chairman of the political party. He has served as commissioner. He has the intellectual power to understand in between politics and what matters. What is the difference between people who are called by politics like Zomoyade and people who have been grounded by the president like the candidate of the PDP? Okay. If you're still there, I want to ask again, the issue of zoning has come up over and over again for the PDP. The opposition, obviously, which is the sitting party, the APC has produced somebody from the southern central districts, which many have asked for a candidate from that zone, even though the PDP has said that it does not matter and zoning should not be an issue. And there's been that argument by your governorship candidate that zoning should not be the issue here, even though the states have, many people in the states have said that they would rather that they have power return to the southern senatorial district. But I want again to hear what the argument of the PDP is being that your governorship candidate is not from the south. Mr. Ikema, are you there? Yes, I'm here. I lost two for the past two, but I think I get a gist of what you're asking. Tom, which is zoning. And like you rightly commented along the way, you and I know that zoning is actually not an issue. Yes, because the APC cross-border state has nothing to contain us. They have tried to drum up the issue of zoning and they break it into thematic is an issue. But I can assure you that on ground, people are more discerning than that. Even if you want to talk about zoning, the truth is that, as you know, we have been able to, unlike some states, transit to a point where every senatorial district has produced a zoning for 80 years. So the issue is not about everybody being allowed or zoning not being allowed. The issue was where next we started, the next round. And I think there was, there has been a particular opportunity on a cross-border. That's why I just said I would push back on it. Particularly as long as it's not on the zoning that is holding the president's governorship. And so between central and south, it was an open field to concept. And then that certainly, that has been the tradition across the last week. That from day one, even his excellency, the former governor of the United States, came out to say he was not a product of zoning. So they were mocking those that he was not a product of zoning. Because at every time, at one, people from across the senatorial district contested this primary to them until they became governor. And it was taken that that zone had taken their turn. And I think that common understanding got to that point. Except when politicians like the Pell, APC, and their governor, they try to clean up the issue of zoning to make it look as if it's an issue. And maybe in a desperate bid at least to have a bit of a hold on a part of the state. For instance, the president of the United States pandering to if you like what seems like the populist opinion in the senatorial district. But I cannot show you that even in the southern senatorial district, people are more aware than what it seems. You may find a few disdainful persons. You may also find people who genuinely feel that, yes, ideally we should go back and start from where it started the first round. But there is equally a strong opinion on ground that suggests that zoning is immaterial where you don't have a performance. For instance, the senatorial district is not smiling at all with the governor here being governor. So if you have them, they can't see what they benefit by having a governor by way of zoning. Now, people are becoming more conscious and more aware politically than before. So having a governor does not guarantee anything. But having a good governor can guarantee something. We can look back and say the years of zoning were good, the years of a monkey were good, because you can count so many infrastructure projects across and indeed they make transverses proud. Where we are now, wherever you hear the invention of transverses and governors, we sound like a joke. Because they have come out publicly in public television, in the news everywhere, to sound like a new joke to every Nigeria, every descending Nigeria, we listen to him. That's where we are. So zoning has become the secondary issue as far as we are concerned with transverses. It involves good governors who can, from his pedigree, give us an indication that he's going to give us good governor. He's going to be a responsible governor that's going to be responsive to the wishes and aspirations of the people of course. That's the issue on the table now. Back to your candidates. Let's dissect into the man himself a bit. You said that he's credible and he's been around the corridors of power so he might be the best hand. But we also saw Elizabeth of infighting within the party as to he being the flag bearer. That's all said and done. He is now the flag bearer. What's the guarantee that he can deliver? Because again, I'm going back to the fact that you called the Donald Duke and the Mokei era, a golden era. But there are those who might differ, beg to differ, at the close of the Mokei administration. Lots of things did not go right. I go back again, emphasis on the fact that that situation threw up who we have today as a Ben Ayade. And it was sold to Cross Riverians as the next best thing. So again, how certain are you that Cross Riverians would want to trust the PDP, especially with somebody that they're not so certain? Again, there might be the good person or the best man for the job. I mean, nobody really ever knows. But what will the PDP be doing in terms of getting people to come on to their side, to believe in the candidates himself? I mean, it's beautiful that you have a woman as his running mate. But is that enough to get the votes of the people of Cross River? Like you rightly said, the people are tired and they want something different. But does something different mean going back to the PDP? Well, yeah, to some extent. Sometimes we have another day in our place that says until the man marries to work, we won't be able to know the difference. Having tested the PDP despite all our complaints and now seeing what the APC and the kind of governance the government already has to deal with, I think it will now know the difference. Not due to no fault of ours. Currently, there's no tech party, you can say, can stand up to the two parties, so to speak. For PDP because it's so grounded for the APC because they have the governor on their side and the so-called power of the people. That's what we're about to text run now. But is it about the will of the people or the power of the people? For all the PDP, we know how grounded the party has been from day one. We know how people believe in the PDP and we know that they're going to vote PDP and we're going to win like that. Yeah, the challenge remains, right? Even if you all try to pick 12 approaches, and among them was a juror. There is no, Shakespeare would say there is no act to find a minor construction in the city. So what do we have? We look back at the pedigree of individualism. Like I said before, people like Professor Sandi, you know, you're household names inclusive as well. They have been in politics. They've been in justice policies like German and Catholic. And when they left, they left with a very loud ovation. That's something you can count on. You say, look, we have seen this man in smaller rules. We know what he can do when he has a bigger rule. We cannot take a risk with this one. I don't want to talk about the opponent candidate, but clearly it's the transition from grassroots to where they are, put experience, both of them share. You can see clearly who can deliver on his mandate. And given the background to what INA has done to completely destroy cross-over states, it's a no-brainer. You can make some efforts and make a whole lot of difference. That's where we are. He has the PDP challenge to the extent that we also have some learning to do or have some learning we have, so on. And we hope that we are going to bring that to bear when we come at the next time. Everybody is going back to the drawing board. Everybody is looking at what we didn't do, right? And I cannot show you that having a take on chance, which is everybody's prayer in life, it's a guarantee that we are going to improve on what we have before. That's where I think the hope in PDP is very strong. I want to talk about the PDP's opposition, the playing of opposition in the party. Because again, many would say that the PDP has not necessarily been a very formidable opposition under the Ayadeh administration. We've seen the PDP being muzzled out of its former party office, state office secretariat. We've seen a lot of the PDP being muzzled out of using the stadium for its political activities. We've seen a lot of things happen. But then, what is of most importance to the people of Cross River is, how well has the PDP played its opposition politics in terms of speaking up for the people? Sorry to interject, but I don't think PDP is competing to be an opposition but the reality is that you're the opposition. But you are the opposition right now. Maybe the APC perfected the act of opposition and maybe we should confine them to the business of opposition. We at PDP were not there to be an opposition party and we do not intend to play professional opposition. We say to get back to it but when I get this done, so if they say we are not good in opposition, we are to admit it early. We are formed to form government. We want to be good in government. But while you're not in government, what about representing the voice of the people because that's what opposition parties do? I mean, so you sit quietly and wait until you get another chance at the governorship? Is that what the PDP is doing? Yeah, but I'm saying it's part of that. If we really have to imagine the people, then we need to re-examine what opposition policies mean. It's not about the Lyme or American opposition, chance to deny it is that they cannot deliver, attempting to paint a picture of what is impossible and so as to win elections. In fact, it's what they call effective opposition. No, we don't want to be there. What we are presenting is an alternative platform. And the idea is that when we had the platform, we did very well. And then moving forward, what we're going to do even back up. If that is not good opposition, so be it. But we're not about shouting online in the news to impress anybody that we are a good opposition party. We are working hard to get back to government, not to be a good opposition party. Well, we wish you the best and we look forward to all your activities and how it plays out COP 2023. Thank you very much. Vanessa's E-game is the party chairman in Cross River State for the People's Democratic Party. Thank you so much for speaking with us. All right. Thank you all for being here. We'll take a quick break when we come back. We'll be talking about 2023, the media space, and of course, civic education. How much synergy should there be? And are we making or taking advantage of it? Stay tuned. We'll be right back.