Power Rotation: Why We Should Test The Commitment Of Our Leaders To The Unity Of C'River State

Mr. Bassey Ita

The year 2019 will be a mirror in the political space of Cross River State being the year that politicians will take a decision about the governance process. It intends to bring the past, the present and future into perspective. One area the state will appear in the public scrutiny is the political inclinations of the people. This will however reflect in the choices that Cross Riverians will make as it relates to the governance of the state.

Will the unity of the state as well as the trust and confidence the people have built in one another which has harmonized their thoughts and considerations be sustained? Or will there be a new thinking that may jeopardize the already established protocol of doing things. Whatever answer there is,  waits for time.

When I was growing up, I use to think that history, which is basically a reflection on the past to enable the shaping of the future was actually a dead subject. Why would one bother about what has past used to be my major preoccupation.  As I grew older I considered that  there's always a past to lay the foundation for the future. I learnt further more that history is rich with lessons to learn about the issues of life.                           
A brief of the political history of Cross River State has revealed a period of uncertainty in the rotation of power until the leaders charted a course that has brought the air of peace, unity and harmony we all breath  today.This piece will do a brief expose on the attempt to do a somersault on the issue of zoning the governorship of the state.

When in  2014, during the hot debate for the northern senatoial district to take a shot at the governorship of the state, Former Governor and now Chieftain of the APC, Chief Clement Ebri was asked to comment about the issue of zoning, he said 'Quite honestly, there had been some element of zoning in the state.... And I believe too that this time,  by virtue of that arrangement, the governorship should go to the north. 

Honestly it should be so because the trend has shown clearly that when it started, it was for eight years and then another eight years for each senatorial district. So I mean common sense and equity demands that it should go to the north. The north is part of our state and so I don't see anything wrong with that.... The understanding of the people is that equity and commonsense should play a major role. I think anything short of the north will be most unreasonable and no reasonable person will want to go a different direction and for anyone who is not from the north to be interested in the position will be bringing a disastrous situation. It will affect the unity of the state. It will affect the confidence of the people. It will 
breach trust and so many other things ''.                           
The debate then was perceived to be a product of an orchestrated plan to deny the north it's place in the common patrimony of the state. But thanks to the outburst of the people and the spirit of commonsense and equity which appealed to the powers that be at the time.

Today, insinuations and sentiments are occupying some public discourse about the failure of an Ayade's governorship and the attribution to the north. But is that not a false generalization that is capable of wrecking the already established unity of the state which some reverred  leaders guard jealously?             

Commonsense is demonstrated when leaders dwell more on what unites the people  than what brings resentment and disunity.  After all, no one has monopoly of prowess.

Incidentally, that Senator Ben Ayade's pooh poohing in governance has given space for wide spread criticism and resentment does not translate to the failure of the entire north as is held in public domain.  It does not and should not obliterate the place of equity and commonsense either in the course sustaining the power rotation arrangement already in place or otherwise.

Although I may be confronted with the question of equity in  the sense of writing an Ayade continuity piece. Quite normal, but this is where commonsense must apply! 

The belief that Senator Ayade has taken the state backwards from the fast pace, forward looking place it had attain has already dried up the tap of thinking in his favour. Certainly then Cross Riverians, one of whom I am,  must begin to think in the direction of changing the party and the man on the  saddle. To deny a people their inalienable right to lifeo is to say that least a road to chaos and it woud remain indelible in posterity that some persons became unreasonably opposed to unity.

Agreed that the north should have another shot of four years as a way of sustaining the existing unity and confidence of Cross Riverians, I choose to speak for commonsense :that although everyone from the norrh may want to contest as they may be qualified, but our quest for the change which has already saturated the atmosphere should lead us to identify and separate between pretence seriousness. I don't subscribe to self deceit under any guise and we do not need rocket science to realize that to wrestle power from Ayade's PDP we need a man with a larger war chest than any one else to do that Yeoman's job. 

This is one assignment I have put on the table of the APC in particular, so that Cross River will as Senator Liyel Imoke rightly advised, find herself in the mainstrram political environment. 

BASSEY ITA,
S.A Media/Publicity 
Office of the National Vice Chairman,
 South South, APC
Writes as a personal opinion.