15 February 2018
The clock is ticking slowly towards the 2019 when the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), is expected to conduct another round of general elections in Nigeria.
According to INEC’s elections time table, the 2019 general elections would hold between February 16, and March 2nd, 2019.
At the moment, politicians in the country have commenced preparation in earnest to cast their hats into the ring, with a view to contesting elections for any position of their desire the state, and national levels.
Supporters of potential candidates for the elections, and the electorate are, in the wise to the countdown to the 2019 elections, not exempt from making their preparations, permutations, and even speculation, as to who would run for a particular position, and who might emerge the victor or vanquished at the end of the polls.
In Cross River State, as obtained across the country, discussion, speculations, preparations, and permutations, making the rounds, in public and private places is that one of those that are possible contenders for the governorship position in 2019 is Professor Eyo Etim Nyong, a High Chief of Efik Kingdom, a renowned academic, and a seasoned politician.
Nyong’s pedigree is obviously responsible for the much talk about what he has up his sleeves in 2019.
However, Nyong a Professor of Petroleum Geology, and often quoted scholars of international repute, has not made any categorical statement, publicly, as to whether he would contest election for any specific office in 2019 or not.
His silence is amidst pressures from diverse quarters, and groups urging him to step forward and present himself before the electorate when election beckons.
For instance, in May last year, the state executive committee of the Inter-party Advisory Council (IPAC), led then by Mr. Baron Eyo, paid him a courtesy call in his Calabar residence and urged him to run for the senate in 2019.
Baron said their call derived from Nyong’s track records when he was a member of the board of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC), where he impacted positively on many lives in the state.
Nyong had informed the IPAC delegation that their call was early; hence he would wait for time and events to determine whether he will contest any election in 2019, and the office he would vie for, if eventually he decides to contest. Nyong also stated that the decision as to contest or not would also depend on his political party, and most importantly, God’s direction on his political future.
However, in August, barely three months after the IPAC delegation’s visit, Nyong who is currently a chieftain of the All Progressives Congress (APC), he made a startling disclosure that pressure was being mounted on him from many quarters to contest the governorship election in 2019.
Nyong who made the disclosure while responding to a question about what his future political ambition would be said: “Yes, there has been a lot of pressure on me to run the governorship again. Issues they are raising are my level of maturity, integrity, my experience in sustainable development concepts, and the fact that I have had the passion to govern this state as far back as in the 90s; that, this may be the opportunity to fulfill that mandate which was lost.”From the response, Nyong may have tacitly given a clue the people of the state about what should expect of him when he further said: “I am still listening to myself, and looking at the political scenario. It seems encouraging. But, there are still some basic things before such decision would be made, and then I would come out and tell the people.”
From the hindsight of Nyong’s political history, the pressure mounted on him may, after all, be the political adrenalin he requires to reactive his long-term desire to rule the state, more so, as he appears to be someone who listens to the voices of the people.
Nyong has been in active politics for close to three decades, and come very close to becoming the governor in 1999 after winning the primary election of the All Peoples Party (APP), now defunct. But fate played a cruel one on his ambition then when some forces, believed to have acted on primordial, and ethnic sentiments, substituted him for Senator Mark Ukpo (now late), who did not participate in the party primaries, to contest against Mr. Donald Duke of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and Etubom Bassey Ekpo Bassey (now late) of the Alliance for Democracy (AD). The APP paid dearly for their action as Ukpo lost to Duke, considered to be a political upstart in the state.
It is held within political circles that protest votes from Eyo’s supporters in the south handed victory to Duke of the PDP against the APP candidate, Ugbo who was from the northern senatorial district, with the least number of registered voters in the state.
After keeping his governorship ambition in abeyance for eight years, Nyong emerged again in 2007, and with the speed of lightening, he allegedly snatched the governorship ticket of the Democratic People Party (DPP) from Ambassador Apang Obi-Odu, and gave the PDP and their candidate, Senator Liyel Imoke, a run for their money in the event leading to the governorship election, and the election proper.
Though the INEC gave Nyong 14,067 votes placing him second, against Imoke who was declared winner having been credited with 803,627 votes by the electoral body, the governorship election was annulled by the Court of Appeal, which held that the election was massively rigged, and that the figures announced as results were fictitious.
Before he signified intention to contest the 2007 election, there was virtually no formidable opposition figure in the state which many had concluded was a “one party state.”
But, the impact he made in the election within the short period he enlisted into the race, having resigned his appointment with the NDDC, shows that Nyong is not one politician to be underrated.
In 2011, Eyo returned to seek the mandate of the electorate to represent the southern senatorial district on the platform of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), after losing out at the PDP primaries to the then incumbent, Senator Bassey Out, in what many saw as a misadventure. Some political analysts have concluded that he wasted time and resources by participating first in the PDP primaries before going for the ACN ticket when it was not too late in the day.
Nyong kept his cool during the 2015 general elections, but it is speculated that he may recharge his political arsenal again in 2019, to vie for the position of governor, if he bows to the pressures being mounted on him from many fronts.
Though he has not signified his interest in running for any office, but he has advanced reasons that may have contributed to fuelling the speculation that he was interested in the top position currently occupied by Ayade by scoring the latter’s administration low in terms of performance.
“I feel worried about the neglect of the development of basic infrastructure; both maintenance of the existing infrastructure and developing new ones. If you look at the internal roads decay, the residences that are threatened by erosion and flood, it’s disturbing. Look at the security situation in the state capital, and across. The crime rate is equally disturbing. The lack of waste management and public water supply puts our health situation in danger. I can mention a lot more,” Nyong stated.
Despite low marks from Nyong for the Ayade-led administration, it is being argued in some quarters that given the unwritten zoning arrangement that saw to the emergence of the governor from the northern senatorial district in 2015, it would be a miscalculation for any politician from the south zone, and central zone to even attempt contesting the governorship elections in 2019.
However, in 2007 despite the fact Duke from the south was about completing two terms in office, Nyong, also from the south ignored all side talks about zoning and contested the governorship election on the DPP platform, against Imoke and others because he believes in merit.
So, if Nyong’s foray into the governorship polls in 2007 is relied on, it can safely be concluded that he would not sacrifice merit, and delivery of quality service to the people on the altar of zoning, that may end up denying the people service driven leadership they deserve.
Many, including those who believe in zoning, agree that Nyong has the pedigree to lead the state having done so much for Cross River State since his day as a commissioner in the state, commissioner in NDDC, and the role he played to ensure that the state did not lose out totally after the ceding of the 76 oil wells to Akwa Ibom State, courtesy of the handing over of Bakassi peninsula to Cameroun.
Eyo’s contributions to the overall wellbeing and development of Cross River State are left for another day’s discussion.
Monday A. Effiom