by NOW IS THE TIME TO FOCUS ON THE FUTURE OF CROSS RIVER STATE
Now that we have gotten over the emotional part of elections and have arguably lost some and won some, the time is ripe for us all to focus more objectively on the future of our state and less on our party, our brother, our friend. For any man who sets up a big company and decides to hand it over to his brother or club mate rather than to an experienced and capable manager will surely find his company in ruination and distress in the end.
Luckily for us, we are only about to wake up from about eight years of agnatic kinship style of governance and the tyranny of cousins, with the elite deck magically restacked in less than a decade through exclusive patronage by the sovereign and the stuffed turtles hidden beneath the vinear of loyalty. The people have suffered greatly under the Egyptian captivity and the time has now come for their inexorable liberation.
And now that it looks like Grigori Rasputin is set to leave the Winter Palace in Leningrad, the search for the new occupant must be deliberate and dispassionate, to find the right man for the job of clearing out the closet
and cleaning up the Augean stable. These are truly uncertain days during which the citizens will hold their breath for two weeks, afrighted by the ghost of Banquo and the squamish feeling of de javu, uncertain still about the certainty of their own redemption or a darker, impending season ahead. As Achebe puts it so succinctly, ‘it is morning yet on creation day’.
Unfortunately, politics is too divisive and self interest propelled to allow for clear-headed thinking and decision making even on a consequential subject matter such as this one. Having handed over our collective destiny and patrimony to different manner of leaders over the past twenty-three years, it should be concerning to us as a people and as a state who becomes Governor from May 29, 2023. The sheer weight of this period invites us to think deeply and make a dispassionate decision for our dear state and for ourselves.
We don’t need a continuation of the nightmare of the last eight years in any guise or form. We don’t need a sectional leader whose allegiance will be to his tribe because it is their turn. Their turn to do what? Their turn to chop? That is not what we need as a state at this time. We don’t need the reign of Obudu mafia to be replaced by the reign of the Efik mafia. We need a Governor for all the people whose claim to the exalted office is based on his own self conviction that he is capable and ready to offer the best of himself in service for the good of all the people.
Cross River State and it’s people have suffered enough, endured enough and sacrificed enough. We cannot afford to make another mistake. Right now we have gone down so deep that we need an elevator to bring us up to the ground floor. We can no longer allow sentiments, rather than our heads to determine our choices because eight years from May 2023 can be a long walk in the scorching sand of the Kalahari desert, when we could so easily have chosen the short road to the brook and the glory of our land.
Disclaimer: The opinion expressed in this article is strictly that of the author, Dominic Kidzu, and does not represent TheLumineNews or its staff
