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| L-R: Messrs Ben Usang, Joseph Odok Esq, Efio-Ita Nyok and Ray Morphy |
Ben Usang|1 August 2017
Am very impressed by the courage of Ceejay Ojong, Princeswill Odidi, Joseph Odok and much earlier Efio-ita Nyok to write articles alluding to the fact that Cross River State Northern Senatorial District has no birthright to a full eight years in power without the contest from other zones of the state. I stand with their position on this issue despite the arguments put forward by Chief Ray Murphy here.
While I am not against zoning of political office to address exclusion or marginalisation of some group from access to power by an organised and powerful majority zoning or affirmative action to any group cannot mean that after one term in office that group is then entitled to exclusively vie for the office at the expense of other groups. To do so will be to replace one injustice with another.
The northern senatorial district has five local government areas while the southern senatorial district has seven the central senatorial district has six. Isn’t it then obvious that should the north be entitle to eight years without opposition then ethnic groups or local government areas in the south and the central that never produced a Governor let alone a deputy would have become victims of the north’s right to benefit from an eight year governorship?
What we should not forget in a hurry is that the north despite having the fewest number of local government areas has benefitted from having had several of her sons as Deputy Governors, Speakers of the State House of Assembly, Secretary to the State Government and Ministers of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as part of the zoning arrangement yet Cross River South has been unable to produce a Speaker of the State Assembly or the Secretary to the state government in the new Cross River State.
It is also important to remind sectional politicians from the north that the new Cross River was based on the agreement between the Old Calabar and Old Ogoja province of the defunct Eastern Region but today the Old Ogoja province has produced three governors compared to only one from the Old Calabar province. So who should be crying?
Ben Usang
Is a Civil Society Activist/Public Commentator who writes from Calabar
