"Democracy is all about choices, alternatives, the right to vote for your choice based on your conviction of the workability of the manifesto or roadmap presented by a candidate!
It is also whether or not the electorates repose their trust or confidence in the ability or integrity or character of a candidate.
When offices are zoned the alternatives or choices available to the electorates become circumscribed and limited which to all intents and purposes is an anathema to the tenets of democracy!!!"
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| Okoi Obono-Obla |
It is beyond dispute that All Progressives Congress was founded on the 31 July 2013. It was the day the Independent National Electoral Commission registered the APC which after three political parties namely the Action Congress of Nigeria , ACN, All Nigerian Peoples Party , ANPP , Congress for Progressives Change , CPC and splinter factions of All Progressives Grand Alliance , APGA and Democratic Party of Nigeria , DPN had agreed to merged to form a broad based national political party to take on the then behemoth Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.
Conversely, the PDP was founded in 1998. This write up will be restricted to the Cross River State and the whole essence of it is to demonstrate and show that the circumstances, factors , permutations , variables and premises that informed the decision of leaders of the PDP to nominate it governorship candidate in 1998, 2003, 2007, 2011 and 2015 are irrelevant and inapplicable to whatever factors , variables and calculations that the leaders of the APC would use in selecting it governorship candidate for the 2019 governorship election .
This is intended to refute the fallacy or the thinking or assumption in some circles that APC must zone it governorship position concerning the 2019 governorship election in Cross River State to the Northern Senatorial District of Cross River State.
The premises of this thinking or assumption is that since Donald Duke from Cross River Southern Senatorial District held office as Governor for eight years and Liyel Imoke from Cross River Central Senatorial District also held office for eight years then in the interest of Justice, fair play and equity somebody from Northern Senatorial District of Cross River State must, therefore, hold office as Governor for eight years !
I have previously shown that the premises for such a position or assumption or argument is flawed , faulty and untenable because the circumstances, variables, factors and permutations that informed the leadership of the PDP to nominate Donald Duke from the South as it's governorship candidate cannot be the same upon which stakeholders of the APC would use in 2018 to nominate its governorship candidate . It is as simple as that. APC and PDP are two distinctive political parties with different ideological inclinations and ethos.
More so, human society is dynamic and not static,; it changes in conformity with current and prevailing thinking, circumstances and times , It follows therefore that political calculations or factors that informed or shape public opinion or electoral behaviour say twenty years ago may not necessarily be the ones that will shape and influence electoral behaviour or even voting pattern presently .
The truth of the matter is that APC is a relatively a new political party whose ideological foundation is rooted in the change mantle; so it should as a matter of principles not emulate or copy from PDP. It must do things differently , peculiarly and uniquely in its own ways. I submit that Cross River APC must discard or distance itself from the zoning formula which leaders of the PDP used twenty years ago to select it's governorship candidate . It goes without saying that every APC in Cross River State who think he or she is constitutional qualified and eligible to contest election into the office of Governorship of Cross River State is free to throw his or her hat into the ring.
There is no zoning of the position of governorship because APC was not yet in existence in 1998, 2003, 2007, 2011 when PDP decided to choose its candidates from the Southern and Central Senatorial Districts of the Cross River State.
Undoubtedly , presently Cross River State is in a state of nadir and decline and therefore will need to have a competent Governor come 2019 with the necessary administrative acumen, experience and presence of mind to change the fortunes of the State!
So competence, merit and ability must take precedence over political expediency in the choice of the governorship .
Democracy is all about choices, alternatives, the right to vote for your choice based on your conviction of the workability of the manifesto or roadmap presented by a candidate!
It is also whether or not the electorates repose their trust or confidence in the ability or integrity or character of a candidate.
When offices are zoned the alternatives or choices available to the electorates become circumscribed and limited which to all intents and purposes is an anathema to the tenets of democracy!!!
Okoi Obono-Obla is the Special Assistant To President Muhammadu Buhari On prosecution, Ministry of Justice
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