Given her politics of networking and her credible background in mobilisation, she re-imaged the party, got tens of thousands of persons across to began reconsidering the ADC. I repeat, no one did anything, not a single person who has now misinformed Amaechi to think that Amb. Nkoyo didn’t put in the works.
At the last visitation of Amaechi to Cross River State, I observed a dangerous development, the Rt Hon Chibuike Rotimi Amaechi makes some statements that regrettably shouldn’t have been made by him. He spoke as though the ADC was alive before he visited the State Capital and went on to sound as if, if the party does not have a Guber Candidate, mobilisation and victory will still happen. I will ask he exits this disorientation in analysis now that is not too late.
I understand that the Rt Hon must have been wrongly misled by people around him to undermine the hard work Ambassador Nkoyo Toyo has put in the party to a point where he must have wrongly believe that without her Guber candidacy everything would have been this good for the party before he visited Calabar.
I need not remind Atiku and Amaechi that as a matter of historical and political fact, the ADC in Cross River State collapsed the moment members of the party left along with Peter Obi to the NDC after Peter Obi departed the party.
After the exit of PO, nobody did anything to resuscitate the ADC party until when Amb Nkoyo Toyo picked the Guber ticket. She began the hard work and consultation afresh. She was the person who dedicated one of her estates for a party office and began mobilising everyone to the party again. Her donated office would serve as the meeting point for all discussions and political candidates in the state.
Given her politics of networking and her credible background in mobilisation, she re-imaged the party, got tens of thousands of persons across to began reconsidering the ADC. I repeat, no one did anything, not a single person who has now misinformed Amaechi to think that Amb. Nkoyo didn’t put in the works.
Now let get to the other core of this political essay, I make bold to say that Amaechi’s lack of awareness of the implications of the nature of things in Cross River State is what will kill his campaign in the state. Millions of Cross Riverians are watching especially in different states where the APC has performed extremely bad and needs real alternatives to replace the president and all the APC governors in various states including in Cross River for tracked evidences from the heavily bankrolled Evidence Group in the State prove that the government is deficient on real infrastructure and poor in performance.
In Nigerian politics, especially in the South-South, you cannot win a state without a governorship candidate. The guber candidate is the field commander. He is the one who provides the mobilisers, the canvassers, the ward coordinators, the money for logistics, and the structure that delivers votes from unit to LGA.
Amaechi’s current posture of focusing only on a national or presidential election while treating the importance of guber candidacy like he did in his last outing with the level of public carelessness he demonstrated by ignoring the Cross River governorship structure and hard work is a fatal strategic error.
The following objective statements below reiterate the facts and why the Rt Hon must think about these things carefully:
- No Guber Candidate Means No Structure
In Cross River, elections are won by structure, not by social media. The PDP understands this. APC under Bassey Otu understands this. Every serious political bloc has a guber interest that keeps its people together.
If Atiku and Amaechi enter Cross River in 2027 without his own guber candidate, who will mobilise for him? Who will fund the 18 LGAs? Who will coordinate the 3 senatorial districts? The answer is nobody. His supporters in the state, including former commissioners, former House members, and youth leaders, are politically stranded. They have no ladder to climb, no ticket to defend, and therefore no motivation to work.
- The Mobilisers Will Follow The Guber Ticket
Cross River politics is driven by governorship interest. The average mobiliser in Ikom, Ogoja, Calabar South, or Akamkpa does not care about Abuja politics – he cares about who will be governor and what he will benefit.
If Amaechi does not present or support a guber candidate that these mobilisers can rally around, they will naturally migrate to where there is a guber candidate. They will abandon him for NDC, PDP, or even failed APC or any party that gives them a local stake. You cannot tell a Cross Riverian to come and campaign for President while he has no candidate for Governor. He will ask you: “After we win the presidency, what is our own?”
- 2027 Will Be A Local Election, Not a National One
The 2027 election in Cross River will not be decided by national sentiment. It will be decided by local survival – who protects the political arrangements, who protects the interests of the Ejagham, Efik, Bekwarra, Yala people, who will give appointments.
By carelessly not prioritising having a guber candidate, Amaechi is signaling to Cross River that he does not care about Cross River’s local survival. That is a message that will not sell. The state will see him as a visitor who wants their presidential votes but offers nothing in return for their local politics.
What He Must Do
If Amaechi wants to be taken seriously in Cross River in 2027, he must urgently rethink things holistically. He must identify, support, and empower a credible governorship candidate or at least a strong guber bloc in Cross River – someone who can serve as his political anchor, mobilise the grassroots, and give the supporters a sense of belonging. I make bold to say nobody comes close to Amb Nkoyo Toyo on multiple fronts, for she is someone who can hold her own and debate anybody in the state, outside the fact that she is eminently and more qualify than any person running for the position in the state in all the parties. Amb Nkoyo Toyo has Master’s Degrees in some of the leading colleges in United Kingdom and United States. If Amaechi needs facts, he should engage Cross River State Civil Society that can’t be bought by anybody and including him.
Without a guber candidate, there will be no mobilisers. Without mobilisers, there will be no campaign. Without a campaign, there will be no votes.
Amaechi may have the name, but Cross River has the structure. And structure wins elections. Make no mistake, any General planning to win a war without his lieutenants is only doomed to fail.
Rt Hon Amaechi, it is time you face facts and live above false gossips that have misled you to think, you as a general will win without doing the needful.
This writer needs nothing from Amaechi or anybody, he simply believes that to free Nigeria, APC needs to be completely destroyed.
Richard Inoyo, Lead Observers, Citizens’ Observatory. And writes from Calabar.
NB: Opinions expressed in this article are strictly attributable to the author, Richard Inoyo, and do not represent the opinion of TheInvestigator or any other organisation the author works for/with.
