By Chidiebere Onyemaizu
Cross River State’s Chairman of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Barrister Alphonsus Ogar Eba (aka Okadigbo) in this interview, spoke on the achievements of Governor Bassey Edet Otu, how former Governor Ben Ayade and the APC saved the state from conflagration and the crisis that engulfed the state House of Assembly.
This is the third year of the APC government in Cross River State and also the third year of your chairmanship of the party in the state. What is the state of APC under your leadership?
I can only thank God Almighty for His grace, mercy, guidance and wisdom. And I will also want to appreciate the former governor, Professor Ben Ayade for liberating Cross River State from the over 20 years of PDP dominance. I must also appreciate sincerely, Governor Bassey Edet Otu for sustaining the legacies, the goodwill and all the derivatives. I emerged as the Chairman of this party on October 16, 2021 on the mantra of political evangelism with the sermon of peace, love, unity and growth of the party and the state, and so for me, the Tiger does not speak of its tigerhood, so I would not want to blow my trumpet about the achievements of our party under my leadership.
In specific terms, what benefit has the APC led government brought to Cross River these three years?
There is something the incursion of the APC in Cross River State has done which is very audible to the deaf and clear to the blind and that is, if former Governor Ayade had not brought Cross River State into the APC, the love, the peace, the political tranquility that were necessarily needed during the transition of 2023 would have turned a conflagration of violence. Why do I say this? The zoning formula that makes and gives room for peaceful transition was to be truncated by the PDP. The coming of the APC through the visionary direction of Professor Ayade on May 20, 2021 remains as one of his significant achievements because he brought peace, love, unity that have sustained the growth of all these three elements in the state today. And so, plugging to the centre and aligning to the elements- love, peace, unity and growth- have brought about unprecedented illumination in the state and you can see it. You can see that the party did not make any mistake in its decision to choose a God-fearing man, a humble leader, that is visionary in the person of Senator Edet Otu. You can also see that the leader of the party as he then was, Professor Ayade did not make any mistake. For me, I leave Cross Riverians to judge us but I want to say that we are satisfied with the performance of the APC so far and have no doubt that the party will do even better.
What has changed in Cross River in the one year of the Otu governorship?
Let me say it clearly that though one year in office is too short a time to assess the performance of any government, the performance of Governor Otu so far has surpassed my own expectations and the expectations of reasonable and right thinking Cross Riverians and Nigerians. Let me start with what has become a very scarce currency in recent time which is political loyalty, political fidelity to campaign promises and manifestos of your party. Recall that on the day of his inauguration on May 29, 2023, the governor was very emphatic to the effect that he would continue with all the good works of his predecessor; he was coming to adopt the sustainable human-centred holistic development paradigm which former Governor Ayade propounded. Governor Otu said he was coming to take the food on the table and hands on the plough vision of former Governor Ayade to the next level by concretizing and putting food on the table. He said he was going to address three top security issues: Social security, energy security and food security. Let me start from food security. Food security is a global problem and today it has become a problem in Nigeria. Food has become a very scarce necessity even in the household of the rich as the prices of food items have skyrocketed. What did Governor Otu do on assumption of office? He said we must return the state back to Agriculture. And in returning to Agriculture, what do we do? We must identify reasonable value chains to grow crops that can earn us Naira, Dollar and other foreign currencies. He then started with soil mapping, went round the 18 local government areas of Cross River and mapped out the soil for the arable cultivation of crops. Today, not only has he voted a reasonable amount of money for land clearing and preparation, he has also commenced the growing of these crops, some with a gestation period of 90 days, some 120 days. A month ago, we were in Ogoja to do 50,000 hectres of rice farming, few days ago, we were at Odukpani to do 12,000 hectares of maize, cowpea , rice, cassava and wheat. We are doing King grass and other world class grass to feed livestock so that the farmer- herder clash will be reduced to its barest minimum. The cocoa expansion programme today has taken a turn with more farms being expanded to grow different varieties of cocoa. Aquaculture has not been left out. A few days ago, a partnership with some foreign investors that will see to the expansion of the Cassava syrup factory was signed.
This is a little from the Agricultural angle to address food security. On the energy security, he promised that though the 76 cross River oil wells that were ceded out were misdirected, everything was going to be done to bring Cross River back on line as an oil producing state. Not only did he two months ago hold an energy summit that showcased the economic potential of Cross as a state with one of the largest deposits of gas resources but about four or so oil wells are about being dredged to realign Cross River as an oil producing state. More are also being cut and about to be opened to take the state far above the 76 that were taken away. Today, his renewable energy plan for Cross River and the energy challenge of the state have also taken him to a direction where former Governor Ayade’s power plants projects are being amalgamated and there is yet another direction towards acquiring the Odukpani power plant which is over 600 megawatts. Cross River State in the next few years will be self sufficient in energy and will have to sell to other states. Governor Otu is set to establish in Akamkpa/ Biase area of the state an oil palm refinery; it will soon come on board and it will be the first of its kind. In the area of social security, he has sustained the legacy of the human capital empowerment that was done by former Governor Ayade. Today, appointments are being done across board, with almost 400 names already on the list and about 600 names or more to be released anytime soon, thereby sustaining the legacy of the party and its manifesto of sustainable human centred holistic development paradigm. Infrastructure has not been kept out. Today as I speak with you, you will need to search to find any pothole in Calabar metropolis and the step is now being extended to major urban areas of Ugep, Ikom, Ogoja and Obudu. Clearly, you can see a man who is determined for the future. The deep seaport and the Superhighway which were signature projects of his predecessor, he has put a transparency policy initiative that is attracting the world today. Only last month , he was in Egypt where the AfreximBank pledged a commitment to budgeting $3.5b to the deep seaport. This is the highest Direct Foreign Investment that any state has attracted within one year in Nigeria and this is because of the confidence and belief in the leadership of His Excellency, Governor Bassey Edet Otu. The International Cargo and passenger Airport, Obudu that was commenced by his predecessor, Professor Ayade is at 75, 80 percent completion with every hope that before December this year, God willing, a plane will land in Obudu. In the same vein, the Cally Air that was started by his predecessor with two Boeing 727, he has taken a step further to get five more different aircrafts of different range; today, the aesthetics of Calabar is restored- the scenery, the waste evacuation which had become a challenge for quite some time now have all been taken care of…water is also now running through the taps. These are monumental achievements in just one year for which the governor, Edet Otu must be commended but even as we commend him, we must also thank the former governor who laid the proper foundation and that was why he declared then that he had laid the foundation, built a proper house and that he was coming with a sweet Prince who will be the finisher of the house; and my dear brother, you know that in the making and baking of cake, what you find on top of it is an icing, that icing is always sweet. We have a governor that is called Sweet Prince, so there is sweetness in the land, it is a season of sweetness.
Recently, there was crisis in the Cross River State House of Assembly leading to the removal of the Speaker, however, the issues were later resolved and the Speaker reinstated. What role did the APC State Working Committee under your leadership play in restoring calm to the House?
You know, this party has a leadership and the leader of the party is the governor, Senator Otu. I was on my first vacation and out of the country when the crisis erupted. The moment the crisis started, the governor called me and told me I should return, let us resolve the issue. When I came back, we x-rayed all the issues and discovered that there was the need for peace to reign. The party, in conjunction with His Excellency the leader of the party, the issues which I consider a storm in a tea cup, a disagreement among the House members, was amicably settled. The removal of the Speaker was now jettisoned and replaced with a vote of confidence passed on him. To the Glory of God and the peace of our party and government of the state, that matter has been resolved. The party under my leadership played a major role, working in close concert with the governor, the leader of the party, in resolving the crisis.
Of late, there have been an avalanche of defections to your party, how is the Cross River APC under your leadership managing these expanding frontiers of membership? What in your view attracted the defectors to your party?
The Holy book, the Bible said my people perish because of lack of knowledge. When we came into APC in Cross River State, the knowledge of what the APC government coming to do was not within the realm and knowledge of most persons. It was truly time for the state to be freed from the clutches, the penury, the chicanery of the PDP but while we struggled to evangelise and preach the message to our people, a lot of persons who felt that the PDP was a gene that runs in their DNA found it very difficult to believe us. In fact, somebody said it was going to be the seventh wonders of the world for APC to win a PDP dominated state like Cross River but when this happened, people saw me as a political evangelist who had foretold what was going to happen, who had foreseen, like Nostradamus that this was going to happen in Cross River State, that the APC was going to win and win very well. I did not rest on my oars, at the Forum of APC State Chairmen meeting with Mr President on March 15, 2024 where as the National Secretary I was mandated to be the Spokesman, I raised a very interesting point which the President and the National Chairman approved. I said that eight million votes for Mr president in a party that displayed 40 million people in our register was not heartwarming and that there was a need for all of us to return to political evangelism. Mr President and the National Chairman gave an approval, so I decided to take the lead to start another round of political evangelism in Cross River State after getting the approval of the governor, the leader of the party that I want to grow the membership of our party to at least 2million people because the good works and achievements of the governor themselves are major attractions for a lot of persons. Nobody wants to change a winning team; nobody wants to pose a challenge to what is good; nobody wants to disbelieve a man whose prophecy of yesterday has come to pass. These and so many other things have become the attraction. More is merrier because number is important in politics. We will be able to manage all that are coming because in Cross River, empowerment does not only focus on party, it focuses on everybody. For example, our Agricultural policy, because hunger and poverty do not know party affiliations, religion or ethnic divide, it affects everybody. The governance of Sweet Prince will radiate in every home and the Renewed Hope of President Tinubu will get to every nook and cranny, reason more people are streaming into the APC every day. In fact, as I’m talking to you, I have just been informed that a team wants to defect and wants a handshake from me; another group of defectors are also gearing up. In fact, the Action Alliance in Cross River has collapsed its entire structure into the APC and the PDP has gone down by 50 percent. I’m sure before next year, there may be no PDP in Cross River again.
Given the excruciating hunger in the land and economic difficulties majority of Nigerians are experiencing currently, how much hope would you say President Tinubu has renewed in Nigerians?
President Tinubu has redirected the misdirection Nigeria was going towards. And let me take you to the foundation. In the 16 years of PDP, we had surplus but we could not save; corruption became the order of the day. When President Buhari came, he thought that addressing the malaise of that period was to embark on infrastructure. To the best of his ability, he did confront the challenges but he took it through a wrong direction again. And what was that direction? He resorted to what we call Ways and Means, printing money trying to defend the dollar. When President Tinubu came, that is why I said he came to redirect the misdirection- and that is the greatest hope he has given to Nigerians because you will begin to see the result very soon. He declared that subsidy must go, subsidy in the petroleum products, subsidy in the dollar regime must go. If that was not done, today Nigeria would have been sitting on a time bomb which explosion would have just been a matter of time. The hunger and the poverty that would have descended on us would have been a child’s play as compared to what we have now. The economic policies of Mr President are not things that will do magic over night. The economic policies have a gestation period of between 25 to 40 months, so in two, three, four years, they would have all come to fruition. I sympathise with suffering Nigerians; I’m not insulated from it because I’m suffering too but I encourage and appeal to everybody to be patient with Mr President because everything will be well very soon.
