“Let the Game Begin. Old and New Members of APC Cross River to Slog It Out. No Vain Talks. We’ve Seen the Light At the End of the Tunnel.”
By Obi Ojage
Except those to rule us are those with good consciences, fair-minded and just, embracing goodness and mercy, darkness shall engulf our land.
The prolonged and protracted National Convention of our great party, the APC, is over at last.
And just like the case of the Christian Celebration of Christmas, those who are still children at heart, especially those adults in our mists who are outright stupid, absent-minded, petty, shallow-minded and profectitious, who have blatantly refused to accept the current realities that celebration of any kind could be an all round event, particularly in situations where you’ve recorded significant successes out of your endeavours and not only on Christmas, knowing that there is still another day.
But for want of wisdom, these sets of individuals still would refuse to entertain those they feel wants to stop them from getting Christmas gift from daddy or those they were expecting gift of shoes, food and what have you, to have thier sleep or have peace.
And for such nebulous reasons to be accomplished by these lots, they are ready to do anything evil, including killing and betrayals, just to get something to celebrate Christmas with, only to realise later that indeed Christmas Celebrations are meant for that day mainly after which other realities would show up for attention where such is lacking to sustain their everyday living that requires collective efforts for those necessities to be realised or gotten.
Just for the attendance of our party’s Convention to be held for just one day in Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory, many in their various states have gone out of the way to hurt their fellow party men and women who are known to be upright but whose faces nor thier ambitions to attend elective positions they had vowed wouldn’t surface at the one day event that holds nothing but the gathering of party faithfuls who are such indeed, some of whom maybe vying to occupy party offices at the national level as participants.
These were never to be impostors, opportunist, renegades, those with jealous instincts and gangsters who have been enlisted and lured into our great party where they were deceitfully promised exemption from prosecution for those emeshed in graft as alleged and other excuses, only for these lots to realise that the Abuja party is now over after a twenty four hours period of their sitting down and making jest over the uncountable speeches by leadership that talks on the need to carry everyone along.
Yet, the evil they’ve done to others in the name of politics lives with them beyond the events as the good things they would’ve done hetherto, whether there was Convention or not.
Now, everybody must go back to their individual states without claiming further, the lies of being endorsed by President Buhari, Chief Rotimi Amaechi or in the present case, Senator Abdullahi Adamu, the newly elected National Chairman of our party.
Where they’re to slog it out with the contending forces within the party awaiting them back in their various states of those who have over time, sacrificed their time, finances and what-have-you for the uplifting of the party against the usurpers of who should become the next Governor of their states in the next few months.
Cross River State, to which I belong, is not different. The battle to determine who becomes the next Governor of the state would take off immediately.
Those with the most stakes in the party that are vying for elective positions are those around whom the battle of succession lies and no other, no matter the acclaimed tugger of those renegades from the PDP, it will not avail.
Equity demands that he who has staked the most in a project, should get the most attention and not the other way around, no matter who presided over the mandate, otherwise there will be catastrophe of an unimaginable proposition I believe if attempts are made by anyone to distort such trends.
Those who came into the party recently from the PDP have added nothing significantly to make those who’ve been keeping the party together any better than their outright display of arrogance over the old members, having taken over all party positions out of share greed and the inordinate quest for what they’re not capable of having for now because of thier insignificant number within the APC fold as it is presently constituted in the state.
They had merely come over from thier earlier domiciliary in PDP where situations were made unbearable to implant themselves in a party they never helped to build, but gained access recently through the forces of manipulation and imposition in a consensual arrangements which were all one-sided in favour of the renegades.
And, all of these maneuverings were carried out uncompromisingly with the help of those who bothered more, only of their personal gains, than those of the ordinary folks comprising old members of the party who are the most hit, with no one challenging their schemes as if there weren’t people of note amongst the old members of APC prior to their coming.
These had made them swollen headed as if there was no APC in the state before their arrival into it. And as such, Cross River APC does seems to benefit the new members in all the positions sort both within the state and the national more than those who had suffered to keep the party going. I am a clear example of such injustice and nepotism.
And these beneficiaries who are all new members are not pretentious of the fact that by their controling the various party structures as it seems, the party is now wholly and solely theirs to do as they choose, regardless of the feelings of those old members who are in the majority.
This is why all of those are now juggling to contest various positions at the federal level on the platform of the party, as we hear now, are all renegades from the PDP, as if there were no persons nursing such ambitions amongst the old members of APC they came to meet on ground.
And, perhaps, only those traitors or Judases amongst us who cannot stay without food, however the food comes, provided it will make them “belle fools”, are those seeing things differently.
They talk of unity only when it concerns their interest. They preach of ONE APC just to enable them get what they want from the endorsement of majority in the party who are the old members and nothing else.
This is why, in order to have equity in the party going forward, everything now should be subjected to voting, not consensus. If that is insisted upon, the arrogance and cheating would stop.
The making of the Governor of Cross River State this time shall not be of any man or imposition but the Lord. And, only those of the Lord who are entrenched, not fakes, shall determine who the Governor would be.
And this is where I am interested. Some had openly accused me for supporting Senator Sandy Ojang Onor of the PDP to be Governor. Since SANDY fought them, they believe I should be seen fighting Prof. Sandy, or make their so-called enemy mine too.
And where they haven’t had good response from that, they, in turn, accused me for supporting Senator John Owan Enoh or Chief Chris Agara both of whom are in the same APC with me against the party’s decision they said, where the Governorship position has been zoned to the South. And they claimed I am playing an Ejagham card: hypocrites, they never lacked what to say.
Who, is more Efik amongst this loudmouths than myself, if I may ask? I hope Chief Chris Agara is still interested in the Governorship race?
However, I must say this here, maybe for the first time, that Prof. Sandy Ojang Onor of the PDP is a very good friend and junior brother to me with whom I have been closed to over the years.
And beside, despite his being from another party, he is outstandingly a good material to run the state as Governor, just like Senator Owan Enoh is, both of who are great young men the state has produced so far as dynamic politicians of the Ejagham extraction from the central senatorial district of concerned, both in character, attraction, intelligence-wise, acceptance, and with status appropriate as Senators, good enough to attract higher political responsibilities.
And the two are young duds I had influenced in a way, as Ejagham young men both of who had admired my courage and vivacity on how I am applying my energy over what I believe in, on their meeting me way back.
And, surprisingly too, I have had a very tight and handsome relationships with these two guys who are now Senators, separately and collectively over the years, right from when both were university students where one read History and the other Sociology and eventually both became university lecturers.
They had always met with me to seek my advice at different times. Party politics therefore cannot break such relationship. And it dare not.
That notwithstanding, everybody knows who my first choice of candidate for Governor in my party the APC, as a Qua/Efik man that I am, is. And this I had made clear severally since two years ago in many of my write-ups with a warning to those in control of the system now that, should the candidate I have painstakingly presented not chosen based on all the qualities I had enumerated in the write-up, APC may have it difficult to defeat the rival PDP.
And that person is none other than High Chief, Senator Bassey Otu (Sweet Prince), and I am not a man who squirms or cut conners. I said so in the past with His Excellency Mr. Donald Duke far back and stood by him, despite all odds, with the so-called ATAM CONGRESS waxing strong then than the present northern or central alliances currently going on in the state.
I was the first to openly declare my support for Prince Otu through an elaborate commentary I made concerning him, where I pared him to run as Deputy then to Senator Victor Ndoma-Egba, (SAN).
When that did not fly, I had to change direction and paired Sweet Prince this time with our Senator John Owan Eno, able JOE, whom I believe would fit properly as Deputy to Prince Otu based on the current zoning arrangements in the state by my party the APC.
Most people do not know how I and Prince Otu are wired. And that Prince Otu is one of my greatest admirers for the roles I play in the party, who is equally supportive of my activities, and I cannot exchange him for anybody as far as Governorship from the South is concerned. His qualities for leadership is undented.
Therefore, I fear no contradictions to what I had commented of his sterling qualities long before those who are now cheering him up because they may have now seen the light.
The next person to Prince in that order from the Southern extraction vying for the Governorship position even though he came late into the party and unto the race, for which he may have to experience some hadicaps in terms of the support of majority of old APC members who have already perch their tent elsewhere, is Architect Etubom Eyo Ndem.
I have twice had lengthy conversations with the Etubom on a veriety of issues bordering on the problems of our state as it is presently, and the solutions to it. In all, I found out that he is such a patient fellow and a very wonderful, sound, and clear-headed man who is worth his onion anytime.
He is not a braggart, yet he is so solid materially and appears fulfilled. As an Etubom, which means he is family head and one of the Efik kingdom bearers, you can’t beat his dept in the Efik tradition and history. It is written all over him.
These are the type of persons needed at this hour in the affairs of the state in the position of Governor or Deputy.
Besides the four men I have mentioned, both in my party the APC and Professor Sandy Ojang Onor of PDP Cross River, and Rt. Hon. (Pastor) Essien Ekpenyong Ayi as a deputy material if he was interested.
There are no other candidates of note amongst those clamouring to succeed the current Governor of the state who is able to rule the state with courage, vivacity and uprightness where he or she is able to command public confidence such that would exude the aura to inspire a gregarious following of ordinary Cross River people who have far in utter regrets lost confidence in the sincerity of government towards thier pleas or worse still meeting thier basic needs which is their inalienable rights as indigenes. I can’t see any.
Out of hardwork and steadfastness, I have developed and built for myself a brand of wide-reach audiences, who read my messages whenever it is posted on the Internet.
Whatever I say goes viral. While those who now claim to be the so-called REAL POLITICIANS in the state than I do, would have to pay heavily to be on AIT, ARISE TV, CHANNELS or have someone to write for them always in order to have their views heard or read across board. But for me, I am a feracious writer as my American friend, Gab Undelekwue, would say.
And each time I make any comment (9) nine friendly numbers of online newspapers spread all across the country carries my ideas, advice or criticism as it drops to their different audiences of hundreds of readers that week, beside the numerous noteable personalities on my WhatsApp group, including four sitting Governors, six former Governors, judges, series of Senators, men of industries, academia, many of whom I have had conversations with personally on phone, all because of my intellectual grip of what I do expounds politically in an overall context of what is going on in our country.
I have spoken on phone with most of the sitting Governors and those out of Government here in my WhatsApp group, who read my articles sent to thier WhatsApp numbers, except those in the presidency where there are deliberate efforts and conspiracies by those there to prevent my write-ups, majorly those written mostly in General Buhari’s defence, from getting to the notice of the President, (a heavy burden which is solely theirs to bear).
I am unperturbed. They’d definitely come across those comments of mine the moment it gets to their chats on WhatsApp or where they’re been read online.
That’s how much I have worked, and you call me a Social media politician? Good for you. What else would you say over what you cannot do?
Between myself and these praise singers, who in the party has the capability of influencing members of the public more? And, who has access to more people who can influence matters in the state and nationally?
How many persons of high repute, who are opposed to the party’s ideals or those who hold different views from theirs can they change?
And, how many of those calibre of persons can they get to or have them convinced apart from those in the state who are government people?
I must say here for the record that there is no truth in the saying that somebody is deliberately making young people leaders now in our state which wasn’t so in the past.
That is not true. In the present case, our young people were brought in incidentally as thugs as a result of fear and in the cause of time they began to justle for positions in the openings available as a matter of right.
But that, as been argued, should be done evenly and not selectively where misfeats are imposed in place of credible and more qualified persons in the state, who are equally young.
Am an active APC faithful member and not a renegade. I am uncowed by anyone.
And no one can qualify nor sideline me in my ward or chapter as there is absolutely nothing in meetings they do call without me which are of any interest to me at the level I operate. I am one who is doing his bit effectively without fear, unjust or being carried by fortunes displayed by men with POVERTY SPIRIT and who are RESTLESS.
I am waiting for the new elected Governor or government to come on board, which must, the Lord willing, with whom I will be ready to share my ideas fully and wholly.
Although hotel reservations for three nights was made available for me in Abuja by some heavyweights in the party, who insisted I must show my presence at the convention venue, in spite of what had happened and money for a return ticket was to be taken care of by another, but I didn’t go.
I believe that it would be immoral for me to attend a convention to sit with those who have stabbed me at the back and stopped from taking part in the convention the way I thought I should, based on my inputs, for no just course. Done merely out of jealousy and malice held against me by those who are known notoriously for their running day and night to meet the likes of chief Rotimi Amaechi or other none Cross River men at the top who are broadminded to solicit for their help, while they themselves are tyrants and obstructionist.
I am, however, using this medium to apologize to those who sent me money and paid hotel bills in Abuja to enable me attend the convention, which I was unable to do, due to those reasons mentioned above. I am truly so sorry.
Amusingly, I saw on television from the venue of the Convention where Femi Fani-kayode, whom I virtually chased out of Facebook Messenger with my pen power against his for his constant insults on President Mohammadu Buhari, now one of the PDP renegades like those in my state, Cross River, roaming around the convention venue before the cameras extremely excited just to show the world that he is now fully, a member of the ruling party. What a place to be for renegades like him.
The blame, however, goes but to the unprincipled leadership displayed amongst the handlers of the now defunct Caretaker/Extraordinary Convention Planning Committee of the APC who embraced the man despite all he did against the party and the President whom they claim to have so much respect for.
Yet, they’re seen accommodating one who denigrates the very man they all claim to respect. While those of us who are supportive, loyal, defensive of the President and performs far more greater in our content than this alleged criminal called FFK, and are allowed to be discriminated against by renegades who are being sheltered by the party, is a condemnable treatment.
No Yoruba person in APC, for any reason whatsoever, would’ve done to Fani-Kayode what the renegades from PDP had done to me since they came to meet us in APC and would escape Kayode’s constant tonguelashing, blackmail and heavy direct insults on daily basis, no matter whoever the person is. But I don’t allow myself to act under the influence of desperation.
We are sane people here. I am equally a Christ’s devotee, and I am working for my incarnation. Politics is just a platform for me to display the Christ-like nature in me for others to emulate.
Those who are real intellectuals know that it is not easy to write at the level I do and the volume of highly intellectual content I dish out each blessed week to the reading public and members of our party, sharing my ideas, advice and criticisms on various issues.
Most of my writing in politics are in defence of my party, the APC, and General Muhammadu Buhari, including different conversations bordering on theosophy, philosophy, metaphysics, or the decedents now pravaling in our society, which are encouraged by men and women with evil hearts and intentions, most of whom are now the operators of the system and that of darkness constantly trying to mislead the children of Light to go astray through the use of mere porridge.
Though these deceivers of ignoramuses and doddering lots disposed to thier lies who are of a Poverty-Spirit, seem to have had their way, majority of whom are fetish and engrossed in material vanity, there is still another time. We’re now to face the making of a new Governor for our various states. Old things would soon pass away, as they say: “WHEN THE NIGHT IS OVER!”
END TIME MESSAGE.
GOD WITH US…..
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