2023: Southern Cross River Insists It Must Produce Governor |The Source

By Stanley Ekpenyong, Calabar

The 2023 governorship election in Cross River state may be two years away but politicking in the state is already in full throttle with political gladiators and various political blocs scheming for the plum position of Governor.

Politicians from the Southern Senatorial District of the State are insistence that it is the turn of that part of the State to produce the  next Governor.

They say any attempt to deny them the opportunity to occupy the Governorship seat in 2023 will negate t the State’s charter of equity and capable of overheating the polity.

Made up of seven local Government areas- Calabar Municipality, Calabar South, Akpabuyo, Bakassi, Odukpani, Akamkpa and Biase – the Southern Senatorial District’s concern  about its 2023 political future, The Source gathered, stems from the alleged moves by politicians outside the district to contest the 2023 governorship election.

Specifically, Senator Sandy Onor representing Cross River Central in the Senate is said to be gearing up to contest the 2023 Governorship election.

A former Chairman of Etung local government area of the state, Senator Onor is allegedly being bankrolled and egged on by a South- south Governor who was also a former Local Government Chairman.

Both men were said to have struck friendship in the course of their activities at the Association of Local Governments of Nigeria (ALGON) where they held important positions.

Going by the unwritten rotational Governorship among the three Senatorial Districts in the state- North, South and Central- the Governorship position is primed to return to the Southern Senatorial District   in 2023, 24 years since it last held  it via  Governor Donald Duke( 1999-2007).

The Central Senatorial district had its turn via the immediate past governor, Senator Liyel Imoke, who held sway between 2007 and 2015, while the Northern Senatorial District is currently serving its turn through the incumbent, Professor Ben Ayade whose tenure elapses on May 29, 2023.

At the end of a recent gathering of political like- minds from the Southern Senatorial zone, under the aegies of Stakeholders of Southern Senatorial District of Cross River held at Transcorp Hotel, Calabar, and attended by, among others, Senator Bassey Ewa Henshaw, a resolution was reached to purse the 2023 Governorship with vigour.

The Stakeholders noted that: “Since the advent of the Fourth Republic, a system of zoning of key political offices in Cross River State, particularly so, the Office of the Governor, has evolved and that the zoning system has produced in succession the last three Governors of Cross River State from each of the Senatorial Districts in the State”

They, therefore, insisted that: “The existing zoning arrangement for the Office of the Governor of Cross River State and all other political offices be maintained; and by that arrangement, the Governorship of Cross River State in 2023 should be zoned to the Southern Senatorial District”

The Southern Senatorial District stakeholders implored political stakeholders from Central and Northern Senatorial Districts of the State to join hands with the Southern Senatorial District to ensure that the zoning arrangement was not interrupted so as to ensure equality and equity in Cross River State.

Time will tell.