Diana Okon-Effiong, Calabar
Chief (Dr) Matthias Offoboche, a PDP Chieftain and former Deputy Governor of Cross River has called for power shift to the Northern senatorial District in the 2015 governorship election.
Offoboche also said that it was unfair for people to use the 1979 Calabar-Ogoja Accord to explain away power rotation in the 21st century in Cross River.
The elder statesman told newsmen in Calabar Tuesday that his position was because the Southern and Central senatorial districts of Cross River had already taken their turn in the governance of the state. He stated that the Calabar-Ogoja accord was no longer applicable and no more being implemented for the single reason that it has lapsed just like the 1979 constitution.
Our correspondent reports that the said accord recommended a rotation of key political positions between then Calabar and Ogoja senatorial district of the state.
Offoboche was Chairman of the Committee which drafted the power shift document at the Obudu Cattle Ranch in 1979 that resulted in the Calabar-Ogoja Accord, when he was the Deputy Governor to Dr Clement Isong.
According to him the accord then was not based on ethnicity but on geographic expression as was in the constitution of 1979: Excerpts.
“The so-called Calabar-Ogoja Accord was reality, but the Calabar-Ogoja accord was premised on the provisions of the 1979 Constitution of Nigeria. In 1979 we had two senatorial district structures. Calabar-Ogoja district of Cross River was enshrined in the 1979 Constitution of Nigeria. Ogoja was used because it was Ogoja Senatorial District and vice versa.
“The 1979 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is dead. We are now operating the 1999 Constitution as amended. The 1999 Constitution talks of three senatorial districts – North, South and Central. So it is unconstitutional to now begin to talk about Ogoja-Calabar Accord in 2013, 2014 or 2015 for purposes of who should take the governorship slot of Cross River State in the next political dispensation. If the 1979 constitution comes to life and displaces 1999 constitution then we will be working by that constitution; but the 1979 constitution is dead. All the provisions in the Accord were based on the 1979 constitution.
“Now that we are operating a new system the accord can have as much relevance as the 1979 constitution in 2013. It is as simple as that. If people want to compete for power, they do not need to import things that are not relevant,’’ he said.
He said that people were free to contest elections in a democracy and stop importing irrelevant arguments to avoid unnecessary problems.
He said that the Calabar-Ogoja Accord was relevant at the time it was done because it was guided by provisions of the 1979 constitution.
Offoboche said that since the 1999 constitution provided Federal Character which also applies to states and local governments things should be done in rotation for all parts of the entity should have relevance.
“So our brothers in the south provided the governor in Mr Donald Duke, the Central has provide the governor in the name of Sen. Liyel Imoke, the sitting governor. It is a democracy; if anybody wants to stand from the south, nobody can stop him. But he has to win the election. But the PDP has a zoning formula for the sake of peace in the country. It is this zoning formula we are trying to stand on. The south has had it; the central has had it; the PDP now has a duty, both legal and moral, to zone the next governorship of Cross River State to the north.
“It is only logical, commonsense and democratic for the people of the northern senatorial district to now provide the next governor. How then would the south continue to provide the governor when the north has not provided one in Cross River State? It is undemocratic. Perhaps, that would have been feasible if it were in the state where there was so much disparity in population. The ethnic composition in the three senatorial districts of Cross River State does not allow for that kind of dominance. I want to plead with my brothers and sisters in the South that they should try to create a condition of peace in this state,’’ Offoboche, a specialist obstetrician and gynaecologist, said.
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