Group Accuses Gov Ayade Of Buying Judgment At Tribunals

A group, Cross River Youth Vanguard for Justice, has accused the state governor, Ben Ayade, of buying judgement at the just-concluded election petition tribunals.

A statement issued and signed by chairman and secretary of the group, John Ekanem and Takon Ebom respectively, said: “from all indications, it is an open secret that there was a strong romance between the state government and the tribunals and we are calling on the EFCC to probe the activities of the three tribunals that have just rounded off sittings in the state.

“We have observed with great dismay the activities of these tribunals headed by Justice Vincent Agbata, Justice A A Babawale and Justice Josiah Majebi with their six members and have come to the conclusion that definitely huge sums of money must have exchanged hands between the state government and the tribunals.”

The group said further: “From our findings, it is clear that the state governor, Senator Ben Ayade, bribed the tribunals with N1 billion, yet same government is crying it does not have money to fix lots of infrastructural facilities, pay pensioners their gratuity and many others. This is not acceptable to us the people of Cross River State.”

The tribunal members, it alleged, were lodged at Kiev Hotel, off the Murtala Mohammed Highway, Calabar, and some government agents were always there especially at night to interact with them.

“Why such nocturnal meetings when they were to remain neutral?

It alleged that part of the N5 billion approval the state government got from the state House of Assembly as loan from First Bank of Nigeria might have been used to service the deal with the tribunal.

The state government, it noted, had said it needed the loan to pay pension, gratuity and other sundry things which a member of the House insisted that the government should be specific on what it needed the money for but that was not done till date.