When I first stumbled on what I will call Obeten Okoi’s polemic in shambles, I had thought of not oxygenating it beyond the narrowness of its confines. I had dismissed it as a failed attempt at persuasive writing which already collapsed under the weight of its own incoherence.
However, by any metric of reason, decency or truth, Obeten Okoi’s hatchet job, masqueraded as opinion, is not only an insidious act of deliberate mischief but a fetid monument to intellectual dishonesty. One cannot help but marvel, albeit with a cocktail of pity and disdain, at the brazen malice with which a man so wholly tethered to political ‘urchinism’now vomits illogic, in service of a failed ambition of a politically vanquished Caterpillar still reeling from the chastening verdict of the Cross River electorate. Let it be said without equivocation: Obeten Okoi is a lackey, a plaintive echo of Sandy Onor, the seething election-loser whose political obituary was inked in bold at the 2023 polls. He has since been reduced to a perpetual courtier of a federal minister. A serial supplicant and crawling genuflector.
That Okoi presumes to lecture anyone on governance is the very height of irony. Here is a man whose ink drips more with vendetta than verity, whose prose is bloated with contradictions, and whose critique, to use his own preferred literary poison, is riddled with “no evidence.” He speaks of “crying governors,” yet fails to conceal the sheer desperation of a political camp still reeling and weeping over a lost mandate they never truly earned. His attempt to fashion a facade of neutrality is laughable. The fingerprints of his master, Sandy Onor, are all over his confused rhetoric — a man who, but for the generosity of Abuja patronage, would today be sulking in the irrelevance to which the people consigned him.
Let us, for a moment, lift this discussion from the septic swamp of Okoi’s imagination and deal in the currency of facts, a realm wholly alien to his tendentious commentary. Governor Bassey Edet Otu has not only embraced governance with vision and vigour but has also demonstrated a rare blend of continuity and innovation. While Okoi peddles the myth that the governor has no scorecard, reality thunders otherwise. Has he conveniently forgotten the landmark securing of a $3.5 billion Afreximbank funding facility for his predecessor’s Bakassi Deep Seaport project?
The continuation and acceleration of the Obudu International Cargo Airport, another bold infrastructure initiative, yet another of his predecessor’s project, is proceeding under Otu’s watch. And in a move of rare statesmanship and compassion, Otu released ?10 billion to clear gratuities for retirees who had waited over a decade in vain. Only a man with a mind calcified by bias could dismiss this as “pothole governance.” Does he also mock the construction of the Adiabo–Ikoneto–Itu road, neglected for over 30 years, now finally resurrected by Otu’s determined leadership? This is continuity wrapped in purposeful leadership.
And what of the spate of massive road infrastructure constructions ongoing in Yala, Ogoja, Ikom, Akamkpa, with upgrades in across Calabar Municipal, Calabar South, and beyond? Or is Okoi’s lens so smudged with partisan sludge that he cannot see what ordinary Cross Riverians witness every day, that their governor is steadily restoring the dignity of statehood with projects that touch lives and expand opportunity?
It is equally risible, indeed tragicomic, that Okoi accuses the governor of both cronyism and bringing back the “old political class.” Pray, which is it? If the “old gang” has returned, then cronyism must be dead; if he’s practising cronyism, then how has he brought back a broad spectrum of experienced hands? Such infantile contradictions expose not only a failure in logic but an outright bankruptcy of argument. Obeten Okoi, in his haste to vilify, stumbles upon his own incoherence and ends up mocking the very intelligence of his readers.
His attempt to blame Governor Otu for the dilapidation of the Obudu Cattle Ranch is a galloping exercise in historical revisionism. That hallowed resort was already a shell of itself long before Otu assumed office. What Governor Otu is doing, and doing well, is sourcing credible private investors to restore its lost allure. But, alas, to a mind wired only for sabotage and innuendo, such progress is impermissible. Misery, they say, loves company, and Okoi, despondent over the political evaporation of his principal, wants the rest of us to inhabit his grief.
Even more laughable is his crocodile concern for “northern and central senatorial districts.” Was it not Governor Otu who revived road projects in the Northern part of the state long forgotten? Are the road projects not a demonstration of equitable leadership distribution and project spread? This is a clear demonstration of genuine leadership steeped in empathy and people-centeredness.
In the final analysis, Obeten Okoi’s piece is nothing but a shrill cry of a political servant whose master’s dreams were shattered at the ballot box. His words are soaked in bitterness, his claims are a cascade of factual inexactitudes, and his credibility is as weightless as the ambition of the man he serves. Governor Bassey Edet Otu will not be distracted by this petty sniping; he is too busy rebuilding Cross River, too engaged in securing its future, and too focused on delivering the “People First” agenda that continues to inspire hope across the state.
Okoi may weep all he wants, but the true tears belong to a failed camp still licking its wounds. And history, ever unkind to liars, will not forgive such shameless distortion. Okoi may whine endlessly on behalf of his puppeteer, but the fact remains that Sandy Onor has long been tapped out and he remains tapped out politically.
Obogo, is Special Adviser to Governor Bassey Otu on Media and Publicity – linusobogo@gmail.com
The views expressed are entirely the author’s.
