Scapegoats and the politics of development in Cross River

By Joseph Odok
Cross River State has entered another season of political argument in which disappointment is increasingly being converted into anger, and anger into the search for a convenient scapegoat. The latest victim is Governor Bassey Otu. Even the media seems to be working with external forces in Akwa Ibom and Rivers to shut all voices of his recovery and continuity just to build focus around his perceived failures. The complaints are familiar: abandoned or deteriorating infrastructure, insufficient new projects, poor development across local governments, inadequate rural transformation and the feeling that Cross River is no longer moving with the ambition associated with earl...