Donald Duke foisted dictatorship & extra judicial killings on C'River, Obono-Obla contends

Efio-Ita Nyok|1 February 2017

Yakurr, Cross River-born human rights activist and legal luminary, Chief Okoi Ofem Obono-Obla has contended that an erstwhile governor of Cross River State, contrary to popular opinion, was dictatorial and given to extra judicial killings in Cross River during the period of his incumbency NegroidHaven can report.

Obla made this comment yesterday in reaction to a January 31, 2015 social media thread shared by Ifere Paul his media aide where the latter was seen to be eulogising Donald Duke, a former governor of the state. In the exact words of Obla, ‘Donald Duke foisted dictatorship of PDP on us using crude and inferior methods including extra judicial killings’.

What follows is the thread by Paul that incited the grave remarks of Obla who incidentally is Special Adviser to the President on Prosecution: ‘Only Donald Duke was able to tell GEJ about the true feelings of Cross Riverians. He summarized it in three Labour Party manifestos: 1. The people of Cross River State wants Bakassi back. 2. The people of Cross River needs government presence through the quick intervention of FG to the deplorable conditions of Odukpani-Itu bridge Road and Calabar-Ikom-Ogoja Road 3. Cross River State needs a stable political re-engineering through true party congresses and true representation of party structures. Without deceptive manipulations as witnessed in CRS in the last primaries.

‘With those statements, Donald Duke remains the last man standing. The only political iroko tree. The only man capable of telling truth to authority. Thank you Donald. Cross Riverians loves you.’

One William Oden corroborated Obla when he said that Duke frustrated internal democracy in the PDP in the state. He pointed out that Duke was responsible for the one party system that was the however the norm in the days of his governorship. Oden’s words reads in part, ‘It is so ridiculous that we’ll forget so soon the mayhem unleashed on political opposition by Donald Duke in a twinkle. He arm twisted rival parties to total surrender. Need I remind you what happened to John Okpa of blessed memory? How was party Congresses engineered? How true where representation of party structures during his tenure. DD publicly boasted that cross river state is a one party state. Of course, he couldn’t be farer from the truth. Not when he declared a “rest in peace” for them.

‘Need I remind you how he declares a curfew during gubernatorial election, handcuffs his opponent into a house arrest, while he roams around freely manipulating election results to his favour. How justified is Donald duke to criticise a game he introduced into our political land mass?  Who is the master of deception and manipulation? Let us flip back the pages of our history and see the real eagle of our time. “eagles don’t flock, they come one at a time” that was his common self description slogan!’

Chief Obono-Obla is yet to particularly mention those affected by Duke’s extra judicial killings or instances of dictatorship. Nevertheless, does Duke deserve our commendation or condemnation or both? Albeit, it should be emphasised that recently there seem to be an upsurging wave of criticism directed at Donald Duke, Cross River’s 1999 – 2007 Executive Governor.

Efio-Ita Nyok
Is a Blogger, the Editor & Publisher of NegroidHaven.org