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By Akpan David, Calabar
Former special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on prosecution Chief Okoi Obono-Obla has stated that it is very likely that the governorship candidate of the ruling APC in Cross River State, Senator Bassey Otu will be victorious in next year’s election.
He has based his permutations on the backdrop of his belief that incumbent Governor, Professor Ben Ayade is very popular in the Cross River Northern Senatorial District where he hails as well as his human capacity and economic development programme in that District.
According to Obono-Obla who himself is a chieftain of APC, he said the people of the District are resolutely in support of the political barometer and tide in favor of the governorship going back to the South Senatorial District.
In a release, he recalled that it was the consensus of the majority of the people of the State that the gubernatorial seat should return to the Southern Senatorial district of the State.
“I forecast bloc votes of the Southern senatorial district going to Senator Bassey Otu of APC.
“Accordingly, Senator Bassey Otu will also convincingly win in Calabar Municipality, Calabar South, Akamkpa, Bakassi, Odukpani, Akpabuyo, and Biase local government areas.
“Senator Bassey Otu will therefore score more than the mandatory 1/3 of the votes in these seven (7) local government areas.
“In the Central Senatorial District, Senator Bassey Otu will easily win 1/3 of the votes cast in the election in Yakurr, Boki, Ikom, Obubra, and Abi local government areas.”
He maintained that in the Etung local government area, where the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Senator Sandy Onor comes from the votes will be split between him and Senator Bassey Otu, although he claimed that the voting population of the Etung LGA is marginal and therefore will marginally impact voting in the Central senatorial districts.
He stated that the voting power houses in the Central are Yakurr, Obubra, Ikom, and Boki LGAs.
“All in all, I predict the victory of Senator Bassey Otu of the APC on 26 March 2023 when INEC will announce the release of the result of the governorship elections in Cross River State.”
But the state PDP chairman, Venatius Ikem, in an interview with our Correspondent, has quickly debunked this assertion.
Ikem claimed that Obono-Obla has limitations when it comes to politics and electioneerings, maintaining that he does not even know how elections are won.
“Chief Obono-Obla has never won any election for his party even in his ward before so nobody should take his analysis of election seriously.”
Debunking Obono-Obla’s assertion that Cross River Southern Senatorial District will deliver the most votes, Ikem explained that traditionally that district delivers the lowest votes in the history of elections in the State and will not change soon.
He maintained that the district is a metropolitan area where most people who register, out of convenience, usually travel to their various LGAs and states of origin during elections to vote leaving the actual few voters who are natives.
“Bakassi LGA has a total strength of 16,000 votes. In the recently released voters register, Central senatorial district has overtaken the South in terms of registration numbers with about 638,000 voters to South’s 602,000 voters . The significance is more in the fact that until now the south with 7 LGAs usually leads in registered voters.
“The point I’m making is that voting demographics is changing and voters sensitivity has moved away from the traditional sentiments.
“We all know that Gov Ayade is struggling with his senate election, which he is losing to Senator Jarigbe Jarigbe and cares less about the governorship election.
“Indeed the Northern district is currently more PDP than any part of the state . APC has not offered the central senatorial district anything to go to the election with, while the PDP governorship candidate is a prominent son of the District.”
Ikem predicted that voters in the district would rather vote for their son, Prof Sandy Onor, and that there is soo going to be tsunami of defections from APC to his party.
According to him, “PDP will beat APC in Central and Northern senatorial districts convincingly partly because of the dismal performance of Ayade as Governor.”
