‘Thy overflow of good converts to bad;
And thy abundant goodness shall excuse
This deadly blot in thy digressing son’
The above reflection by famous English playwright, Williams Shakespeare in his play, “The Tragedy of King Richard the Second”, Act 5, Scene 3, aptly mirrors the current travails of the Cross River Central Senatorial Zone and the vacuousness of their wanton representative in the senate.
Described variously as a political plague on the Central for his association with outsiders who hold the state in contempt, Dr Sandy Onor is seen among his constituents as that faggot who brings lizards to contaminate the state.
In a bid to rivet the spotlight from his two years of lazying and monkeying around in the senate with no tangible scorecard to show, Dr Sandy Onor attempted, furtively to x-ray His Excellency, Governor Ben Ayade’s stewardship in the last six years.
Actuated more by his fast-fading inordinate ambition to scupper the existing understanding for power rotation among the three senatorial zones of the state, Sandy’s blighted partisanship is robbing him of the clarity of his sight. Hence he seeks to create a nexus between ego and performance or achievement in office.
Since Governor Ayade’s widely lauded decision to mainstream and socket the state into the centre, Sandy and his ilks seem to be experiencing a bleary and blurred vision, culminating in their warped and jaundiced mindset for an honest assessment.
Perhaps and just perhaps Sandy is self-isolated from the state and completely deaf to the industrial revolution that has since enveloped the state, it will suffice to bring him to speed with Governor Ayade’s achievement as well as a few of the many industries already built and completed by him.
Established right in his Central Senatorial Zone is the multi-million naira 30,000 metric tons cocoa processing factory as well as toothpick factory in Ikom and Yakurr Local Government Areas respectively.
The setting up of the cocoa processing factory in Ikom is to create a value chain for cocoa as well as ensure appropriate pricing for farmers.
In the Southern Senatorial Zone is a medley of industries such as Rice seedlings and seeds multiplication factory, 24000 per hour Chicken processing factory, the noodles factory, integrated feed mill factory, Calabar garment factory, Calabar Pharmaceutical factory, Piles and Pylons factory in Akamkpa, Continuous Teachers Training Institute in Biase amongst others.
In the North is the automated vitaminized rice factory in Ogoja, roofing tiles factory in Yala, Groundnut oil processing mill in Bekwarra, the British/Canadian international school in Obudu and the 148km dual carriage road that cuts across the entire senatorial district.
Despite the aforementioned industries spread across the state, built in the face of abject paucity of funds, coupled with the crippling debt overhang amounting to over N350 billion, inherited from previous administrations, culminating in the state not being able to borrow, it beggars belief that Sandy’s partisanship would not allow him a dispassionate assessment of Ayade’s achievements.
Reading Sandy’s lame attempt to assess Ayade’s scorecard leaves one with an urgent need to conduct a psychoanalysis on the man representing the central senatorial district in the senate.
His assessment of the governor exposes the dishonesty in him. It seeps through every pore of his massive frame. It also ventilated the inner recess of a senator with deep-seated envy and hate. It reveals in stark relief the desperation of one whose inordinate ambition is fast evaporating into tin air.
One would have expected that after his failed attempt to devalue the massive achievement of the governor, Sandy would reel out what his own scorecard in the senate has been in the last two years, but alas, he recoiled into a whimper and self-pity as there is nothing to show for his wasteful two years as a senator.
A divisive character, Sandy has been anything but a unifier. He has created a chasm and polarized the central senatorial district in his conceited and self-seeking escapede to be governor. Such is the portrait of a voluble and self-styled oracle of the Central Senatorial Zone.