.

*Says party needs a formidable candidate to deliver state

*Dismisses zoning arrangement by his state party leadership

*We have a government that is APC but we don’t have a people that is APC yet, he claims

By Joseph Erunke, ABUJA

THE 2019 All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate in Cross River State, Senator John Owan Enoh, has asked his party leadership to give him the right of first refusal in the state’s forthcoming governorship contest.

Enoh noted that as the last governorship candidate of the party who narrowly lost to the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, he was entitled to the privilege, given the massive public goodwill he enjoys in the state.

The politician, who was variously elected into the State House of Assembly and the two chambers of the National Assembly before vying for the governorship of Cross River State in 2019, dismissed the zoning arrangement by the party, tasking the party to throw its governorship ticket open since açcording to him, the circle of zoning earlier held in the state had been completed.

The governorship aspirant, who spoke, Tuesday in Abuja, at an interactive forum, organised by the Cross River State Journalists Forum, CROSJOF, insisted that his party needed someone firmly rooted in grassroots politics like him to secure the state for it in the coming general election.

He insisted that he be granted the right of first refusal in the party, noting that anything short of the privilege would be unfair treatment to him by the party he has so much worked to build in the state.

Hear him: “Sometimes last week, the leadership of my party, the APC in Cross River State called a meeting of all governorship aspirants and so far, about three of us from the Central Senatorial District have indicated interest to run, Pastor Usani Usani, Barrister Chris Agara and I. From the Southern Senatorial District, we found out at that meeting that there are about 12 people, even those we never heard about were at that meeting.

“On that day, I was the only one from the Central Senatorial District that attended that meeting. The two others didn’t come and when some people, some senior citizens of the state tried to prevail on me that the meeting was a trap, that I shouldn’t attend, I told them why I didn’t think I could fall into a trap. I told them that I can sit at one table alone and face a million people and it wouldn’t change my position on issues or matters.

“I attended that meeting and at the end, they said the chairman said he wanted all of us to individually commit to allowing him to buy only one intent and nomination form for the office of the governor and he asked everybody one by one and everybody said ‘yes’, he should go ahead. When it got to my turn, I said yes, no objection to buying only one form but only to the extent that that form is bought in my name. I told them that only to that extent would I commit to that.

“And I reminded them of a story when I was in the 8th Senate where former Governor Fashola of Lagos State and the current minister had appeared before the Senate for a confirmation hearing and a senator asked him about his relationship with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu he started by saying ‘for all of you 109 senators that are here gathered, that my prayer for each and every one of you is may your loyalty never be tested.’ I told the party that and what I meant was that I wish the rest of the aspirants came from a senatorial district other than the one the governor and leader of the party are saying that the governorship is zoned to so that we will watch how their reactions would have been, whether they would have been clapping for him the way I saw them clapped. And I wish they had for example, also share my feeling, that in 2019, I was a candidate of the party for this office and therefore, I think in all fairness, I should even have the right of the first refusal. I will also make that case going forward, I have not said that before.”

Recalling his 2019 governorship contest, he said, “I didn’t lose for the fault of mine.”

“The first meeting I ever addressed after that loss in 2019, in Ikom, my opening statement was that when you lost an election with so much public goodwill, you haven’t lost an election,” he said

He expressed surprise that the party which claimed to have zoned governorship seat to the southern senatorial district of the state, set up a committee to prune the number of aspirants to two in each senatorial district.

“I woke up to see in most of the platforms in Cross River State APC, that the state party leadership has set up a seven-member committee, that the seven-member committee is supposed to engage and interact with all the governorship aspirants with the purpose of pruning them down. Açcording to the party, pruning them down to two from the central and two from the south and you begin to wonder what has suddenly happened to the ‘Back to South Agenda.’

” Why two from central, is it possible that something is beginning to happen or is it possible that it is just a trap so that they will gradually walk into an agenda that is already prepared? Whatever it is, again, there is a lot of anxiety across our state and beyond. People have called me to draw my attention to that and what I told them is that my campaign organisation is going to issue a public statement about that,” he said.

Açcording to him, “what it means is that we are engaged in a political transition within my party under a very foul political atmosphere and unnecessarily made so.”

Enoh said his insistence to run given his wide acceptability by the people of the state was attracting criticisms by proponents of zoning who he noted, wanted to “take power through the back door” as a disloyal party faithful.

“I have told them, the party that the way they are beginning to make this argument about zoning to sound, the way I listen to every aspirant talk about commitment and loyalty to the governor and about the fact that they are about to accept whatever position the governor takes is making some of us who insist to run from the central to come across as if we are carrying on in total disregard and disloyalty to the leader of the party and I said that was not correct, and I said I am a loyal party member,” he said.

He told his party to reflect on development during the recent bye-election in the state so as to make informed decisions regarding the governorship race.

“If you judge the strength of the Cross River APC and the PDP in terms of the last bye-election that took place in Cross River, what it means is that the PDP won and that the APC lost. And I’m here to see the leadership of my party benefit from that experience in terms of going forward politically.

“And until they see reason with that, then I’m not going to be convinced that they are actually committed, determined and desirous of getting a victory in 2023,” he said.

He spoke further on the bye-election: “In the last bye-election in Akpabuyo State Constituency in the South and Ogoja/Yala Federation Constituency in the North. Almost everything that I imagined before that election came to happen.

“I had reasoned for example, that if you look at the three senatorial districts of Cross River, the APC was least competitive in the southern senatorial district. After the governor’s defection to the APC, all the four National Assembly members from the South, nobody left the PDP-a second-term senator, a fifth term House of Representatives member, a third or fourth term House of Representatives member, and a second term House of Representatives member, all of them, nobody defected to the APC.

” You may not understand why this matters in our politics. In our politics, they are those that have the resources, they are the masters of the game. There are those who have the followership in that South, those who defected with the governor are appointees and some House of Assembly people.

“What happened to the last bye-election? In spite of the fact that the governor had said ‘back to South’ several months before that bye-election, in spite of the fact that before that bye-election, there were at least eight people from the south vying for the governorship in all, all that couldn’t give them the momentum to win a House of Assembly seat.”

He warned APC against giving its ticket to the zone he said, has few voters.

“Now, interns of my interrogation of all the elections that have taken place in the past, in terms of voter turnout, it was also my position that if you look at those that vote, local government by local government, that the votes in Cross River State politics are located in Akamkpa, in Biase, in the central and in the North. Even when elections have not become the way it is now, Calabar South the South would register about 100,000 voters and my local government in Etung would register about 30,000 but on the day of the actual election, Calabar South would register about 19,000 voters or 18,000 voters and Etung would have the same number. What that shows is that those that have the number that comes out to vote are located elsewhere. I say this because it makes it a little bit unbelievable that a party with these kinds of things can still go ahead and say that the governorship is zoned to that zone where the party is least competitive and where the votes won’t come out.

“Now, what happened in the bye-election, not only did we lose Akpabuyo, the total voter turnout from all the candidates- APC, PDP and others, in a local government where all the candidates came out from, which would have excited the voters, was just 10,000 plus and Ogoja in the North without a candidate for that election and a local government of equivalent structure in terms of a state constituency like Akpabuyo, the total voter turnout was 20,000 plus. I speak to you with facts, with numbers,” he said.

Açcording to him, the state only has the government of APC but lacked people that are APC.

He said: “And so for me, it is that I joined the APC in 2017 and since joining the APC in the 8th Senate, I have been working tirelessly for this party. I am, therefore, very careful and desirous that this party records success in 2023. We have a government that is APC but we don’t have a people that is APC yet. “

“We will need to win the 2023 election for us to begin to turn Cross River into an APC state. And we will need to take some extraordinary decisions and be deliberate about that.

“If you are a political player in Cross River and that doesn’t scare you, then you need to be reexamined.

“So, when insist to run, I insist to run because, in all the senatorial districts, the senatorial district where I come from-the Central Senatorial District is the hotbed of APC politics in Cross River, it is the most competitive senatorial district. In an election where the party’s prank is in the favour of the PDP, we all were in the PDP, we all made the PDP strong, but that strength will not suddenly fizzle out because we are no longer there,” he further said.

The former senator representing Cross River Central spoke further:”A lot of our grassroots people in the villages and in the ward, the one that they know is the umbrella. So the party platform is going to be of advantage to the PDP. The candidate may therefore seem to be an advantage to the APC but only to the extent that we present the candidate. In 2023,the APC needs to present such a candidate to get Cross Riverians to vote for it. If it doesn’t do so, then there is trouble.

“And because we have two parties that are competing, my party needs to look at what the PDP is doing. Even though some of the aspirants in the PDP from the South have been trying to push the argument of zoning, it is not getting any traction which is why the leadership of the PDP in Cross River has even come out with a statement to say that their governorship is open to all zones. If the PDP that has produced all governors in the state including Governor Ben Ayade is talking about that, how much more than the APC that has not produced any governor electorally? How much more is the APC that has no zoning in its constitution? So there is something wrong, there is something going on.

“And in terms of the real argument of zoning, after 24 years, every zone in Cross River has produced a governor. It is too simplistic to now imagine that because the first governor came from the South, therefore, after the completion of a circle, the state must start a next governor from the South. It’s too simplistic, in fact, logically, the fact that the North waited and took last doesn’t mean that in the new circle, they should wait again and take last. There is nothing wrong with the North even starting the governorship if they have people that are running. What Cross River had ruled against is that no zone should take more than once when other zones have not taken as well. That means in a new round, no zone in Cross River would take more than twice without every other zone taking twice. It doesn’t matter when. Those who are talking about zoning are using that to take power through the back door.”

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