By The Cross River State Consultative Forum (CRSCF)
A shadow has been cast over the Cross River sun; not by clouds, but by a chorus of manufactured grievances. The recent, well-considered appointment of Orok Bassey Okon Esq. as Head of Service has been met not with the applause due a qualified son of the soil, but with the dissonant cacophony of selective amnesia and ethnic baiting. To this, the Cross River State Consultative Forum (CRSCF) rises in robust defense of not just an appointment, but of a principle: the inviolable right to equity after a long winter of exclusion.
The critics have woven a mosaic of accusation they label “nepotism” and “Efikanisation.” Yet, a critical examination reveals threads so weak they unravel at the slightest tug of truth. Theirs is a narrative built on the quicksand of the present, deliberately ignoring the bedrock of the past.
Let us speak facts, for they are stubborn things.
Where was the cry for “convention” when for thirty-eight long years (since 1987), not a single Southerner held the chairmanship of the Cross River State Civil Service Commission? Where were the poetic pleas for “fairness” during the fifteen-year odyssey in the political wilderness, where the entire Southern senatorial district was systematically sidelined from key offices like the Accountant General, a position untouched since the Duke era? This deafening silence from our current critics is the most eloquent testimony to their hypocrisy.
For instance, these voices remained muted during the nominations of Amb. Sony Abang (Central) and Larry Odey (North) to plum roles at the inaugural board of the South South Development Commission (SSDC), as well as Stella Odey (North) to the Federal Character Commission –all nominated by Governor Otu.
They champion a convention of seniority only when it suits them, remaining mute while a broader, more significant convention of equity was denied an entire people.
Governor Otu has not broken tradition; he has upheld it. He has simply allowed the wheel of natural justice to turn, as it rightly should. When Governor Imoke (Central) appointed Ntufam Ebam (Central) to SUBEB, it was accepted. When Governor Ayade (North) appointed Dr. Ebunshua Godwin Amanke (North) as Education Commissioner, it was the order of the day. Now that a Governor from the south appoints a southern Head of Service—succeeding another Centralite, Dr. Innocent Eteng, in a position previously held by the north in the person of Akwaji Ogbang—it is suddenly an abomination? Besides, are these critics aware that the outgone Head of Service Dr. Eteng actually recommended three people to replace him of which Okon Esq., was picked? This is not logic; it is the height of intellectual dishonesty.
The attempt to reduce this historical rectification to “Efikanization” is a desperate, divisive gambit. It is a facade. The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Education and Entrepreneurship, Akamkpa, is an illustrious son of the Ejagham nation –Prof Patrick Nyong-Asuquo. Need we be reminiscent of the recent coordinated onslaught against southern candidates in the ongoing shopping for the leadership of the University of Calabar, where these hypocritical naysayers are bent on standing history and natural justice on the head? The Southern region is a vibrant collage of Efiks, Efuts, Ejaghams, and Quas, all of whom have shared in the collective marginalization and now, rightly, in the collective redress. To claim otherwise is to peddle a dangerous falsehood.
To our erudite friends who now dream of a pure meritocracy: we ask, where was this ideal when the old order held sway? One cannot invoke a colour-blind meritocracy only when the long-overdue wheels of political equity begin to turn. To those who eloquently divorce legality from fairness: true fairness is not myopic. It is intergenerational. The minor discretion of bypassing one senior official is a negligible trade-off for correcting a generational injustice that has stifled the aspirations of a entire zone. The law grants the Governor the power of appointment for a reason—to be exercised justly. And there is no greater justice than inclusion after exclusion.
As it has been brilliantly established by some, the Governor’s power is not just legal; it is absolute within the law. The convention of seniority is just that—a convention, not a statute. The same discretion that elevated a Grade Level 12 officer to a Permanent Secretary can certainly be used to appoint a qualified Permanent Secretary to Head of Service. The Governor has acted within his rights, and more importantly, he has acted within the bounds of moral justice.
Therefore, we declare that this criticism is not born of a love for balance, but of a nostalgia for an imbalance that benefited a select few. Governor Bassey Otu has not plunged the state into crisis; he has lifted it from the stagnation of exclusion. Orok Bassey Okon, Esq., is not a beneficiary of tribalism as touted in some quarters; he is a harbinger of equity.
The sun of natural justice is finally rising over the entire state. No amount of shadow-playing can hold back its dawn. We stand firmly with the Governor in this necessary and righteous course.
Hon. Eyo Nsa Ekpo, Esq., for and on behalf of Cross River State Consultative Forum, CRSCF
For Equity, For History, For Progress.
