By Inyali Peter, PhD
ABUJA (CONVERSEER) – With the national convention and congresses of the All Progressives Congress, APC now concluded, political attention has shifted decisively towards the 2027 party primaries. According to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC timetable, political parties have between April 23 and May 30, 2027, to conduct their primaries and submit the list of candidates.
Already, the race for APC tickets across the country has intensified. In Cross River State, aspirants, both serious contenders and strategic pretenders positioning themselves for 2031 have begun aggressive mobilization, lobbying, and early campaigning.
As the leader of the APC in the State, Governor Bassey Otu currently holds both the knife and the yam. His decisions on who gets the party’s ticket, particularly for National Assembly positions, will have far reaching consequences. While the need to strengthen the State House of Assembly with more competent legislators is important, that discussion deserves a separate analysis.
In any state, National Assembly members rank among the most powerful political figures after the Governor. They control significant resources and can, when motivated, challenge the Governor’s authority and attempt to or seize party structures.
Fortunately for Governor Otu, his second-term bid in 2027 faces no credible opposition. The near-total absence of a strong opposition party, combined with the relative stability and performance of his administration, makes his re-election appear secure. However, the real battle begins almost immediately after his second inauguration on May 29, 2027. The politics of succession in 2031 will kick off in earnest, and the quality and loyalty of those he sends to the National Assembly will largely determine whether the current atmosphere of peace and stability in the state’s politics endures.
The truth is that many stakeholders remain dissatisfied with the processes that produced the current local government chairmen and the state party executive, but they are currently suppressing their grievances to protect their interests ahead of 2027. Some who are pretending to be loyal to Governor Otu were at the forefront of the fierce battle against his predecessor, simply because they were not allowed to seize control of the party structures at some levels. Today, the congresses have come and gone, but the same people who fought as if their existence on earth depended on it are suddenly pretending that all is well, even though they could not produce a single executive at any level.
Nevertheless, the countdown to 2031 will begin in November 2027 with the next local government elections, gather momentum during the 2029 congresses, and reach its climax during the 2030 primaries. To prevent looming instability, Governor Otu must be deliberate and ruthless in his choices. He should avoid rewarding people with traceable traits of disrespect and disloyalty to his leadership, to authorities and party’s hierarchy in the state.
History offers a clear warning. In 2019, Governor Ben Ayade made a costly error by allowing external forces to impose Senator Sandy Onor as the PDP senatorial candidate. That single decision fractured Ayade’s control over the party structure, ultimately contributing to his exit from the PDP and his current political struggles. Those who engineered that imposition have consistently refused to allow outsiders such leverage in their own domains.
Governor Otu must acknowledge that what happened to Ayade was not unique to the PDP or that administration. The same precedent can repeat itself if he allows aspirants with a sense of entitlement, those who openly see themselves as bigger than the state and believe they do not need the Governor’s support to secure tickets to have their way.
Some of the current National Assembly aspirants do not share Governor Otu’s vision or philosophy for the state. Their loyalty appears transactional and temporary; a fair-weather allegiance driven purely by ambition. Once empowered, they have shown a pattern of turning against the very hands that fed them. They have done it before and they’ll do it again.
The Governor must ask himself some hard questions. What can he possibly offer these people that that those before him that they fought, disrespected, and betrayed did not offer them? Where exactly does their loyalty lie? Does he want to spend eight years in office only to watch the same forces that have already lined up a preferred successor use the people he empowered in 2027 to undermine his legacy and impose external interests on the state?
There is a dangerous precedent in Cross River politics that must not be allowed to fester. The recurring influence of external forces in determining the fate of the state through the imposition of disloyal political actors, people they would never tolerate in their own states must stop.
Governor Otu must approach the 2027 nomination with his head, not his heart. He cannot afford to mortgage the future stability of the state and his political legacy on the altar of short-term convenience or sentiment. If those who brought some of these people to limelight don’t mean anything to them now, in just about few years from now, Otu may become their next victim. States who are playing in the big league in Abuja are those who had leaders that never compromised loyalty to their states.
As the scripture warns in 1 Samuel 15:23, “For rebellion is as the sin of divination, and presumption is as iniquity and idolatry.” In politics, disloyalty and presumption are not isolated acts, they are deeply rooted mindsets that rarely change. President Bola Tinubu did not build his enduring political empire by empowering disloyal elements. Governor Otu would do well to follow that example.
The ball is firmly in Governor Otu’s court.
Shalom!
