Dr Emana Duke Ambrose Amawhe is the immediate past Deputy Governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Cross River state. Few days ago, she dumped the party for the All Progressives Congress. In this interview, Dr Ambrose-Amawhe, who spoke with Journalists shortly after a grand reception in her honour, said she was attracted to the APC by Governor Bassey Otu’s performance and therefore charged other Governors in the country to emulate the Governor’s development strides. Excerpts:
What does this reception on your defection to the APC portend for you?
This grand rally portends the beginning of new things politically not just for myself and my 100 thousand plus followers across the 18 local government areas of Cross River State; it means the entry to a new season in the entire landscape of Cross River State.
We have collapsed our entire structure to partner with Governor Bassey Otu to deliver on his ‘People First’ mandate and partner with the Renewed Hope Agenda of President Bola Tinubu to drive economic development for our people, every Cross Riverian.
Nigeria is gradually drifting to a one-party state, what is your take on this?
Nobody forces anyone to join any political party. Political parties are open platforms where people choose to align with certain ideologies. There is nobody holding a gun to anybody’s head to join the All Progressives Congress. People are voluntarily and willingly joining the All Progressives Congress in the State.
I had said that the development strides of Governor Bassey Otu are worthy of emulation not just by other Governors across the 36 States of Nigeria, but it should be a rallying point for Cross Riverians generally to join hands and make the job easier for the Governor to deliver the dividends to the people at the grassroots.
On a larger scale at the national level, Roman was not built in one day, everything has to start with one step. We are almost at the 2-year marker, people are saying that it is long enough, but the systemic decay that we have seen did not happen overnight. It has been there even before the current democratic cycle, which started since 1999
Two years is enough for us to see indicators if we are moving in the right direction. But, the thing is that the average man wants food to eat. I believe that President Bola Tinubu is actually working by putting people, who can get the job done, in the offices where these jobs need to be done and they should be allowed to get the job done.
Why then did you defect to the APC from PDP?
I decided to defect because I cannot be an armchair politician. Every politician needs a viable platform. I came to serve my people. I am an active citizen, I do not want to sit on the sideline and achieve nothing for the people I serve. I want to make positive contributions by entering the boxing ring, put on the boxing gloves and partner in whatever capacity I can to bring the needed and desired change to our people.
What is your political ideology?
I believe in Servant-Leadership. If you want to be a leader, you need to understand what it is first to serve. You should be able to follow the people that you claim to lead, understand their needs. You cannot meet everybody’s needs, but in the little way you can, you can listen and begin to strategically plot out your graph with the partnership to ensure that day by day, we are moving closer to the Africa we want, to the Nigeria we desire and the Cross River State of our dreams.
