While people are celebrating or wearing long faces over the outcome of last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections across the country, the people of the Central Senatorial District are pondering how they will deal with the issue of an absentee Senator-elect.
Dr. Rose Oko, who emerged the winner of the election on the platform of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to represent the district in the Senate, has not been seen in public since September last year. She is said to be ill and receiving treatment in a hospital abroad. She won the primary election in absential too. Oko is the member representing the Ogoja/Yala Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives.
The northern senatorial district consists of Ogoja, Yala, Obudu, Bekwarra and Obanliku local government areas.
The controversy surrounding the woman started in the build-up to the primary election of the party last year, where many from the area believed she picked the party ticket under disputable circumstances.
The general feeling is that she was imposed on the people by the government.
In the campaign tours of the party moving round the state, she was noticeably absent. When campaigns for her were carried out in her district, it was done with her posters.
Her absence fueled rumours of her death. Stakeholders demanded her immediate replacement, but the chairman of the PDP insisted she was well and would be back to the country as soon as possible. With the elections coming and going without her, there have been fresh concerns about what the situation exactly is.
Coupled with allegations by the main opposition parties, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Labour Party (LP) that the National Assembly elections in the state was rigged by the PDP in connivance with some officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Tension is mounting in the area.
Speaking on how she emerged despite resistance, a PDP chieftain, who chose to remain anonymous, said: “You know the PDP have structures there and those structures are what they used. You know also most people there are not enlightened. All they know is PDP. They don’t know if the candidate is alive or not. The thing is that the PDP has a style. They gave each leader in each area a polling booth to deliver. On that day they would do all they can to deliver that polling booth. They had money and foodstuff to induce people to vote for them, which is what they did. All the people did was voting for PDP.
“Also most of them who are the enlightend ones in the party have their interest to protect, so they will just go along with anything. They felt that if the party’s governorship candidate, Ben Ayade wins, they will get one thing or the other. They are working for the government. They expect that if they remain in the PDP and do the bidding of the PDP, they will be rewarded.
“A lot of people are unhappy with the situation but cannot fight the government. In fact, here they were happy and celebrating that the PDP lost at the Presidency because of this situation.”
At the moment, what is of utmost importance to concerned citizens from the area is that they want to see the person that will represent them in the red chamber of the National Assembly in the next political dispensation.
“Is it too much to ask that we know where our representative is and how she is? I don’t think that it is really fair on us the people to be kept in the dark about what is going on. It is an unfortunate development I must say,”Mr Charles Odey from Yala said.
