From Judex Okoro, Calabar
The Cross River state chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Barr. Alphonsus Ogar Eba, has stated that the incoming administration will be magnanimous in victory and will extend hand of fellowship to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Prof. Sandy Onor, and other candidates.
Addressing newsmen at the party secretariat in Calabar, Eba said this is in line with the message of the governor-elect, Sen. Bassey Otu, and also aimed at recruiting the best for the state and take it to the next level.
He said: “Our dear brothers on the other divide should hearken to the message of our governor-elect and we want to align totally with his message.
“It is going to be an all inclusive government where people from Labour Party, PDP, and other parties will be brought in and the best among whom will be recruited to take the state to the next level.
“We will be magnanimous in victory and share the bounty with everybody and every Cross Riverian. Besides, non-indigenes resident here will have a place in the incoming government”, he said.
On zoning, he said it has come to stay in the state and the party will sponsor a bill to legitimise this in the incoming administration.The zoning principle? which today Cross Riverians have endorsed, should remain an abiding faith in us.
“We shall move a motion and ensure that the eight years that is guaranteed for each senatorial district will never again be obstructed or truncated.
“We will frame a bill that will make it actionable or criminally liable if any party or Cross Riverian from any senatorial district decides to run against the zoning principle because this is what the state has come to endorse”, he said.
On the issues ethnicity which divided the greater segments of the state during the run up to elections, Eba expalined that “the election was a referendum that ethnicity does not have a place in our politics and that was why the reflection of the result.
“The result to us was a consensus reached by Cross Riverians to show that the initial tension which was along the lines of the Efiks, Ejaghams, Quas and whatever did not have any place in our politics.
“It also was a clear demonstration of our people not to play politics of religious divide or that of indigenes and non-indigenes.
“March 18 has brought us again as a people that are united under the canopy and umbrella of peace, love and unity and we are sure that Cross River State shall grow”, he stated.
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