By Emmanuel Unah

Before Wednesday, January 7, 2015, the regular refrain among the   People’s Democratic Party, PDP, leadership   in Cross River State was, “there is no opposition in Cross River state”   but the rally held by the All Progressives Congress, APC, on the above date  has seemingly changed the political  language and equation in the state.

APC

The rally, which was   organised as one of the campaign stops of Major General Muhamadu Buhari (retd), the APC presidential     candidate, attracted an unprecedented   crowd of supporters   which no opposition party has been able to muster in the past 16years of the present political dispensation and this marks a significant tipping   point in the political affairs of the state

From all parts of the expansive state, crowds of the party’s   faithful   converged on the Mayne Avenue Primary School, venue of the rally   as early as 9 am singing and dancing while awaiting the arrival of Buhari and his entourage whose delayed   flight arrived   the Margaret Ekpo International Airport , where another large crowd of supporters was waiting for him, at about 4pm before proceeding to the rally centre.

Many political watchers   in the state were taken aback by the large turnout   of supporters judging from the near comatose position of the APC and other opposition   parties in the state.

Following their persistent battering by the forces of the ruling PDP   right from the days of Mr Donald Duke who during his eight years tenure consistently   wooed over many members of the opposition parties   while those who remained adamant were decimated politically.

From being the  majority with 13 out of the 25members in   the State House of Assembly in 1999,   the APC then called APP went down   to zero in the 2003 elections as all those who contested elections for the positions of chairmen of councils, Senate, House of Representatives, State House of Assembly and even councilors on the party’s platform   lost woefully until 2011 when Ernest Irek,  a member of the PDP who lost nomination to Mr Fabian Okpa crossed over to the then ACN  and won Okpa in the general election to become   the House of Assembly member representing   Obubra 11 State Constituency.

The cantankerous outcome of the party’s state executive council election of the party in 2014 did not help matters as   some staunch   members were expelled leaving many people disgruntled.  However,   like the   proverbial kiwi which rises from its ashes, the party found its foot back  in the months of November and December 2014   with   the influx of some PDP members   following the acrimonious outcome of the PDP primaries   and this significantly     boosted the ranks of the party.

Effectively, with the entry of defectors from  PDP,   the party which in 2011 could hardly present candidates for elections in half of the constituencies was able to fill every vacant position as many people, particularly the PDP renegades fell over themselves to pick the party’s tickets to contest elections for the various positions.   So most of these candidates unlike the dead woods of the past were able to muster resources to ferry their supporters from across the state to the rally venue.

Elective positions

With the large turn out and the enthusiasm on the faces of most of the candidates an d their supporters, the state is set for a strong battle for  elective positions beginning from the House of Assembly to the   governorship and the presidential election.

The party may, however,   need a miracle to win the governorship slot owing to strong political calculations and     indices   that prevail in the state.

But to say   the party would lose all the positions it has fielded candidates has always been the situation in the past ,   would not be a wrong   assessment of the political situation in the state.