While it has become clear in very recent days that Okurike, Biase-born Ivara Esu will deputise for the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Ben Ayade, Esu’s choice is unsettling to a few persons of Efik extraction, www.calitown.com has been informed. The grouse is not unconnected with the believe by some that the Efiks have been subtly left out of any influential political positions as the PDP targets Peregrino House.
Not too long ago, an anonymous source called to inform www.calitown.com that the position of deputy governor within the PDP “cannot go to the Central Senatorial District because there is the Calabar-Ogoja Accord to respect and not this three senatorial districts thing that you people seem to be banking on”. While that submission sounded out of sorts initially, events that have unfolded in the run-in to the governorship polls, lend credence to this submission. However, while the deputy governor’s position has skillfully eluded the Central Senatorial District and returned to the South, our source is insisting that, “Imoke had no consideration for the Efiks in pushing the position to Ivara Esu, his relation. I hope Imoke understands that Esu cannot garner for the PDP, winning votes and when we do vote, the votes from Odukpani, Calabar Municipal, Calabar South, Akpabuyo, and Bakassi can change anything”.
Swiftly, a PDP State Exco member has risen in defence of Imoke saying “the choice of Ivara Esu was not Imoke’s decision, it was the PDP’s. Those who are insisting that he made that choice tend to want to undermine the collective decision of the party which agreed that an excellent scholar be brought in as Ayade’s deputy. Again, if a few faceless Efik elements say Imoke has no place for them, it is very clear those people have never heard the name Efiok Cobham, who has been Imoke’s deputy for all these years. I am convinced that what they are saying is built on complete falsehood”.
Again, most political watchers in the state tend to agree that the Central Senatorial District of CRS, should be the one crying foul and not the Efiks. While the district has produced two governors in the persons of Clement Ebri and Liyel Imoke, what should be her turn to produce a deputy governor has been skillfully taken away and handed back to the South. It therefore follows that the position of Speaker, Cross River State House of Assembly, will come to Central with Imoke’s kinsman, John Gaul Lebo, touted as the one in waiting.