It is no news that nobody from Northern Cross River was favoured with an appointment by President Muhammadu Buhari when he was elected as a President in 2015.
No doubt, a lot of appointment came to Cross River State, many of which were concentrated in Cross River Central.
With the weight of these appointments, one would have expected that Cross River State should have been delivered to President Buhari. But the reverse was the case.
The Federal appointees were not only unable to deliver the State to President Buhari, they were all shamefully defeated by the PDP in Central Cross River.
The reasons for such an abysmal performance is not farfetched. Every of the President’s appointee aggregated to themselves too much national power, and exerted same against the party’s collective coexistence in the State. Rather than unite the party with their portfolios and influence, they decided to all work against the unity of the party in their various capacities as representatives of Mr. President.
It is unfortunate that Mr. President spent over 500 Billion Naira as the sum total of projects executed in Cross River State between 2015-2019 through the NDDC and its supervisory Ministry, the Ministry of Niger Delta Affairs. These projects were awarded to the State in order to booster economic development, and to empower party stakeholders.
Not a single stakeholder was so empowered. The purpose for the award of the contracts to the State was defeated as individuals at the supervising Ministry hijacked all projects to enrich themselves, and to stand stronger to be the only ones to decide the fate of APC in Cross River State, and or who gets/got what, when, based on how long they came into the party.
From day one, the APC as a party was built on the shoulders of giants who are dwarfed and blinded by their penchant to grow their own ambitions. They played the invisible role of the PDP inside the APC, thereby making the party unsellable to Cross Riverians.
It is therefore unthinkable to continue to share Federal appointments among brothers and sisters in Cross River Central who do not care to use the said appointment to foster growth and unity amongst stakeholders in the APC.
The APC as a party will go on an auto crash mode should these persons who are now holding appointments continue to decide for us as a party largely because they are factionalized.
APC needs a neutral person. A person who never identified with any faction that existed within the APC, but was always willing to support all.
Above all, it is time for APC Northern Cross River State to produce the next Minister of the Federal Republic of Nigeria for Cross River State.
Ifere Paul is an APC member and writes from Calabar.
NOTE: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Ifere Paul, and do not represent the opinion of CrossRiverWatch or any other organization the author works for/with.
Leave feedback about this