By Jonathan Ugbal
The senator representing Cross River northern senatorial district in the 8th assembly Rose Oko, Saturday in Ogoja shared 6 million Naira amongst constituents thanking them for voting her in absentia.
In a similar vein, the member representing the Obudu/Obanliku/Bekwarra federal constituency in the 8th Assembly, Hon. Legor Idagbo also gave each of the three local councils he represents 500 thousand naira each in a meeting which held at the Ogoja council secretariat.
The meeting CrossRiverWatch gathered began around 11am and lasted for less than an hour and had in attendance the Chairmen of the five council areas that make up the district, Bekwarra, Obanliku, Obudu, Ogoja and Yala.
Senator Oko expressed her gratitude to her constituents for “casting your votes for me while I was not around”. As a measure of goodwill for the yuletide, she then announced the sum of 6.1 million Naira to be shared among the five local government areas and non indigenes.
The sharing formula as gathered by CrossRiverWatch sees Bekwarra, Obanliku, Obudu and Ogoja local government areas collecting 1.1 million each while Yala which has the highest number of political wards gets 1.4 million with the non indigenes getting 300 thousand Naira.
The meeting also had in attendance the People’s Democratic Party chapter chairmen of the five local governments as well as other notable personalities such as Stephen Odey who is the current State Universal Basic Education Board chairman, Former Local Government Service Commissioner, Peter Ojie amongst others.
It will be recalled that in the run up to the last general elections, reports of Dr. Rose Oko, who was then a member of the House of Representatives in the 7th Assembly, been critically ill, filled the atmosphere with no one aware of her whereabouts for almost six months.
Her party members and colleagues all kept mute with only her posters used to campaign for her from the primaries through to the general elections as reported by CrossRiverWatch.
She however surfaced weeks after the elections to collect her certificate of return.