A former Governor of Cross River, Sen. Liyel Imoke, has said that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) remains the only party that will make Nigerians smile again.

He spoke in Calabar on Sunday.at the inauguration of the state’s Presidential Campaign Council for the Atiku-Okowa ticket.

While urging the council to embark on vigorous campaigns across all the nooks and crannies of the state to sell all the candidates of the party, Imoke said Nigerians were overwhelmed by the numerous challenges confronting the country.

The former governor, who noted that the ruling party All Progressives Congress (APC) lacked the solutions to the problems, said that the PDP remained the party to tackle the challenges.

According to him, “We all understand as Nigerians that we are we facing challenges and they are of such gmagnitude that the country is hemorrhaging under the current leadership.

“To get out of the woods, we have to come up with the best and the best right now is Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Dr Ifeanyi Okowa.

“It is important and critical that we get our people to understand the importance of doing the right thing in the coming elections because if we make another mistake it will be the end for Nigeria.

Imoke said the only way out was to vote someone who could help Nigeria to recover from poverty, poor education, insecurity, hunger and disunity.

He said and the only person that could do that was Abubakar.

Speaking on the crisis in the party, Imoke said that it was an internal affair and would be “resolved internally as soon as possible“.

The Chairman of the Campaign Council in the state, Sen. Gershom Bassey, said it was extremely important that the PDP won the presidential election which would be the first to be held in 2023.

“It is very clear that the key to the victory in Cross River is Atiku wining the presidential election because once we can win the first election all the others will fall into place.

“We know that the presidential election is key, very strategic to us in winning all the others.

“Our track record as a party is unparalleled, no other party can match it, our track record is clearly tangible in terms of empirical evidence, PDP is way ahead,” he stated.

On his part, the Director-General, Field Operations of the Campaign Council, Mr Michael  Eja, explained that Cross River had always been a PDP state and would remain so after the 2023 elections.

“Atiku-Okowa ticket will fly because we have been a PDP state and the PDP will go into the elections as one family because all our disagreements would be resolved amicably and we will not only win in Cross River we will win across the country.

“Our people are interested in good governance, Cross Riverians will express themselves with their votes, our people are no longer interested in the issue of zoning.

“Our people want to feel governance real time and I believe they will speak with their PVC in favour of our party, both here and beyond,” Eja said.