Spanners Drop In Assemblyman’s Second Term Bid

While Ngim Okpo, the member representing Biase State Constituency in the Cross River State House of Assembly may have sounded out his desire to return to the CRS House of Assembly for a second term, unfolding events in the Biase LGA political landscape are indicating otherwise, www.calitown.com has scooped.

In an interview with the online platform www.crossriverwatch.com which was published on May 15, 2014, the lawmaker advanced reasons why he should be allowed to do a second term and has gone ahead to consult and initiate meetings in that direction. It is in the course of these meetings that it is becoming increasingly clear that the mat may be dragged off his feet. Two meetings in Calabar, one at No. 2 Barracks Road and the other in Michelle Suites, Asari Eso, for youths and elders of Biase respectively, is said to have resolutely rejected hus second term ambition. The meetings called by former House of Assembly member, Obo Mkpanam and Alex Ukam, did however insist that Ngim Okpo should pack up and leave.

“How can the man be insisting that it is a tradition in Biase for anyone in the House of Assembly to do two terms, whether the person performs or not? Doesn’t he also understand that people can break from tradition and we are poised to do just that”, one source told www.calitown.com. Other sources are insisting that his candidature was forced on the Biase people in the first instance by Emil Inyang “who was Biase council chairman then and even when Ngim wanted to be chairman, we protested and Gov Imoke intervened, seeing that we had valid reasons for insisting that he cannot be our council chairman, the rest like they say is history”.

Severally, those who have teeth sunk in Biase politics claim that Okpo doesn’t reach out to his people and further too that the House of Assembly seat should come back to “this other axis of Biase”. It is the latter argument that seems plausible. Our investigations show that Biase East and West offer the internal political platforms on which elective offices are negotiated for. Since 1999, an equitable political arrangement has ensured that Biase West has produced members representing Biase in the CRS House of Assembly while the other half, Biase East has produced the chairman of council. Now, after the last council polls that gave life to the tenure of the present council chairmen in the state, Biase West produced the council chairman and it looks only normal that as the pendulum has swung, so should the assembly seat shift in the opposite direction. It is what a source refers to as “the only way to go in the circumstances at our disposal”.

For now, while Ngim moves from post to post, it remains to be seen if any political arrangement in Biase will permit the chairman of council and House of Assembly member to come from the same area, it is an arrangement you can put your money on.