Lawrence Akpan

The Conference of Nigerian Political Parties (CNPP) did not mince words when it demanded the immediate dissolution of Governor Bassey Edet Otu’s Executive Council for “gross incompetence, lack of direction and policy inconsistency”. Thirty months in, that statement reads less like opposition rhetoric and more like a coroner’s report on a dying state. The real disease, however, is not bad luck it is the governor’s deliberate decision to staff his government with loyal praise-singers instead of people who can spell “deliverables”.

Start with healthcare, once a quiet pride of the state. Today, general hospitals in Ogoja, Ikom, Obubra and Calabar look like relics from a civil war documentary, empty drug shelves, broken incubators and nurses buying gloves from their salaries.

The vaunted ‘Project 30-30-30’ health insurance scheme was launched with brass bands and has since vanished quieter than a politician’s promise. Maternal mortality climbs, Lassa fever makes seasonal comebacks, yet the Commissioner for Health spends more time defending the governor on WhatsApp groups than fixing a single primary healthcare centre. Loyalty: 100%. Results: zero.

Education is an even darker comedy. Public primary schools have become poultry shelters leaking roofs, no chairs, no chalk and teachers have not been paid allowances since the last election cycle. The state’s free education policy exists only on faded billboards while parents now pay “voluntary” levies that rival private school fees. Cross River’s WAEC ranking has tumbled into the bottom ten nationally, but the Commissioner for Education is too busy inaugurating borehole plaques with the governor’s portrait to notice. Merit would have demanded a technocrat; loyalty delivered a professional ribbon-cutter.

Transportation and works? A masterclass in how to turn federal and state allocations into glorified political patronage. State roads, Parliamentary Extension, Atimbo–Akpabuyo, the spur from Marian Road to MCC are either abandoned mid-asphalt or progressing at the speed of erosion. Contractors openly complain they are owed billions because funds meant for mobilization were diverted to “loyalty appreciation packages”. The Commissioner for Works drives a gleaming convoy, while Calabar motorists dodge craters deep enough to swallow a Hilux. Competence would have finished one signature road in two years; loyalty finishes press conferences instead.

Tourism, the very soul of Cross River’s brand, has been murdered by mediocrity. Carnival Calabar is now a pale imitation funded by desperate sponsorship begging. Obudu Mountain Resort remains padlocked, Tinapa is a magnificent ruin, and the Marina Resort is overgrown with weeds taller than the tourism commissioner’s excuses. Billions allocated for “tourism revival” disappear into consultancies awarded to party boys who have never sold a single tourist ticket in their lives. The ministry has become a travel agency for loyalists attending “exposure tours” abroad while the state’s hotels bleed to death.

Agriculture was supposed to be the new oil after Bakassi was lost. Instead, ‘Project Grow’ has grown nothing but Instagram likes. Seedlings distributed in 2024 have long withered, cocoa rehabilitation is a slogan, and oil palm estates promised with fanfare exist only on PowerPoint slides. Rural farmers still sell at giveaway prices because there are no processing plants, no off taker agreements, and no commissioner bold enough to admit the ministry is run by people who cannot distinguish a seedling from a flower pot.

Youth empowerment? The less said the better. The administration’s Youth Internship Programme (AYIP) started with thunder and collapsed in fraud allegations within months, stipends went to ghost names, coordinators were selected by ward chairmen, and thousands of genuine graduates were sidelined because their fathers did not campaign hard enough. Today Cross River boasts one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the South-south, but the Special Adviser on Youths is always available for ribbon-cutting.

Local government administration completes the tragic circle. Eighteen chairmen, hand-picked for unquestioning loyalty, have spent over a year collecting federal allocations without publishing a single line of expenditure or a single completed project. As the CNPP demanded: where are the scorecards? The answer is simple, they don’t exist, because accountability is a threat to the loyalty ecosystem.

This is the bitter fruit of a government built on sycophancy rather than skill. Every ministry, every agency, every board is headed by someone whose primary qualification is the ability to shout “Your Excellency” without ever asking “Your Excellency, where is the money?” Until Governor Otu finds the courage to sack this parade of mediocrity and replace them with people who can actually do the job, Cross River will continue its free-fall from People’s Paradise to People’s Pity.

The CNPP’s demand is no longer political, it is an emergency intervention. The Season of Sweetness has turned rancid, and loyalty is the poison.

* Akpan, a journalist and public affairs analyst, writes from Port Harcourt

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