A former lawmaker who represented Cross River Southern Senatorial District, Bassey Edet Otu has denied giving Governor Benedict Ayade N1.5 billion and N500 million to anoint his successor and Deputy governor respectively.
In a statement released to Journalists in Calabar on Thursday, Otu described the rumour making the rounds as malicious.
Otu who is a chieftain of the APC, dissociated himself from a publication spreading such rum, saying they are also false.
“My attention has been drawn to a maliciously false and completely distressing publication dated Monday, 7th February 2022 by an online news site that Governor Ben Ayade of Cross River State and his brother, Dr Frank Ayade, have finally settled and zeroed in on me as their choice of a successor as he prepares to vacate office in May 2023.
“The malicious publication also opined that he has demanded a whopping N1.5 billion from me and N500,000,000 from my supposed deputy to that effect.”
“I wish to categorically dissociate myself and my political movement from the rumour and the said publication.
”The publication is an invidious and destructive handiwork of political neophytes and enemies of progress”, Otu insisted.
He said such persons want to destabilise the system for their own selfish ends, stressing that the state governor couldn’t have asked him for such.
“The Governor has demonstrated an uncommon capacity for hard work, integrity, innovation, patriotic zeal, political maturity and a gallant display of humaneness which has set him far above others.
“He is a man of integrity who would not stoop low to sell or bargain with anybody or group, the sacred office he has been entrusted with since 2015.” Source: DailyPost
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