By Sylvanus Ushie
In the last 2 weeks, the political barometer in Northern Cross River has been on the rise!
There have been agitations and permutations all linked to 2027 politics. The salvo started with the formation or rebirth of NORTHCO! A group which claims to represent the North. Practically all its members have been in office more or less continuously since 1999, yet the North of Cross River has nothing to show for their countless years in power! Yet, they have resurfaced with a claim to loving the North! Can a vulture turn into a dove?
All their years in power, they didn’t remember the North. Is it now, for the first time that a Senator is working for the North, that these forces are trying to realign? Is it now that members of the HOR from the North are meritoriously serving the people of their various constituencies that these expired fellows want to come and spoil the flow of development in the North!
In all their years in office, most of these prodigal politicians never went near home. They operated in Calabar. Their politics was in calabar. Even when the government of Liyel sent them home with goodies for the people, they never went home. They took rooms in hotels in Calabar where they lavished the people’s money! Those of them that were in Abuja returned only to Calabar where they stayed until they went back to Abuja. They never cared for the North, then!
These same folks were part and parcel of the rapacious Ayade Administration. An Administration that left the North worse than it met it. It is during Ayade that the ranch collapsed. It was during Ayade that the Obudu International Marathon was scrapped. It was during Ayade that many roads that the people were managing were scraped but never repaired. Yet billions were siphoned off in the name of the North!
These men ganging up now were mostly part and parcel of that regime that destroyed the North. That very regime set the North back. They didn’t rise then. Instead, they feasted on the carcasses of their own people.
Today, Jarigbe and Co are beginning to give our people a taste of government amenities and facilities; they are now rising so that they can once again set the North back.
Anyway, there is nothing to worry about. We know them, they are ganging up to see how they can deceive Prince Otu so they can engage in another round of choppings. They can go ahead, but we, the people, know them.
They cannot win anything politically. They think that the people have forgotten! The people are waiting for them. We will advise Otu to look well. If these are the people who want to use to win elections in the North, then he has a hard road in front of him.
We, the people of the North, are wiser than this. And we will send them back to the sender when the time comes!
Sylvanus Ushie,
Writes from Calabar!
CAVEAT: Views expressed in this article are those of the author, Sylvanus Ushie, and not in any way related to those of Converseer, and or its staff.
