Barely fourty eight hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared the All Progressives Congress, APC, governorship candidate, Senator Prince Bassey Edet Otu, as the winner of the gubernatorial election in Cross River State, a chieftain of the APC, High Chief Higgins Peters, has expressed shock over the number of votes polled by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Senator Prof Sandy Onor, in the election.
The APC chieftain expressed the surprise while reacting to the outcome of the election, where the PDP candidate Senator Onor polled 179,636 votes, even when he suffered defeat by his APC rival who scored 258,619 votes.
Expressing shock on Onor’s scores on Thursday in an interactive session with journalists, the critical stakeholder in Cross River State politics stressed that in his wildest imagination, he never knew that Cross Riverians would be so charitable to Onor, knowing that he was attempting to bend justice and equity that has been responsible for peace and brotherhood that state enjoys on the back of seamless rotation of power that was intended by the people of the state.
High Chief Higgins said, “Never had I thought that the candidate of the PDP, who acted like an interloper and a man swimming against the tide would score beyond 20,000 votes, but to my greatest chagrin Onor dared the APC with 179,636 votes.
“I was very definite because Onor was actually swimming against the tide. I was so surprised that he had more than 100,000 plus votes.
“I will congratulate him for that effort, but I don’t support the fact that bad attitude should have been rewarded with such volume of votes, because it would encourage others at other times.
“The reason is because we have a seamless transition of rotation from South to Central to North and back to South again, so how would anyone want to distort a model that brings peace and harmony?”
On why he called for the dismissal of the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi’s purported endorsement and comment about the PDP gubernatorial candidate, Senator Onor, prior to the elections, Higgins averred that the comments were made in ignorance and innocence, as Obi isn’t conversant with the dynamics of Cross River State politics.
However, 24 hours after Onor was defeated by Otu of the APC in the governorship contest, Chief Peters came out to comment on purported endorsement, which he had advised party supporters to disregard and take for granted, because it would be of no effect on the governorship elections.
