10 May 2018
There is usually the tendency to fear and hold in trepidation the things and people we don't know well, always imagining that they could vanquish us, like the boogeyman in our yellow-fever dreams. Such may have become the lot of Ntufam (Dr) Sandy Onor by those who feel dwarfed by both his physical quantity, social connectedness and intellectual achievements. Such fear discloses itself in a a variety of ways including the possibility of crying wolf where there is indeed none.
The Dr Sandy Onor Campaign Organization, which has become popularly known as The Caterpillar Movement has taken notice of a few tepid write-ups by some young fellow who has struggled to make an argument and perhaps pull a rabbit out of the hat, about the candidacy of Dr Onor for the office of Senator representing the Central Senatorial Zone of Cross River State. Such arguments, lacking in facts and substance, bereft of style and form, have ended up at best as anticlimactic and painfully pitiful.
We will like to inform the general public and particularly our affrighted competitors that modern day politics, the world over, is about the contest of ideas and the capacity that one has to intellectually intervene in the continuing national conversation about what is, and what ought to be. And that increasingly, the electorates are beginning to put their best foot forward in realization that the people they send to the center must have been adequately prepared for the challenge ahead. Once the electorates understand this, the choice of who they will vote for will become very clear. Senates all over the world, even as far back as the Roman Empire, are hallowed in their sheer nobility and elevated in realm and consequence. The choice of who represents a people therefore, in that sacred chamber, will be the choice of the best among the lot. Any examination of the candidates who have thrown their hats in the ring right now in the Central Zone that side-steps these fundamental parameters and goes in search of mundane gossip will be pulling down this noble office from the Olympian heights of mount Kilimanjaro to the back waters of a slum.
Dr Onor by all tests and measurements stands head and shoulders above the chasing pack. An accomplished academic, a grassroot politician, a business man, a public servant and philanthropist. Dr Onor has the pomp, character and sagacity to become a dominant figure in the Senate within a very short time. What recommends him for the job is the sum total of his person in all its completeness and not his social interactions or friendships across state boundaries. Having been a state Chairman of Centre's party of Nigeria, local government council Chairman, Chairman of chairmen, CRS catapulted to National Vice Chairman of Association of Local Government Councils of Nigeria(ALGON), two term Commissioner for Agriculture and Environment and member Cross River State Executive Council, Chairman Cross River State Local Government Commission, member of the National and Constitutional Conference of where issues of serious national concerns were discussed.
As a nationally-recognized party man, he was appointed Cross River State Director General of Jonathan/Sambo presidential campaign committee. Director General Donald Duke presidential campaign organization. Director General Sen Liyel Imoke gubernatorial election. Chairman PDP election appeal panels, member of the PDP caucus and recently secretary of the PDP National convention committee.
Surely, these credentials will send jittery in the spines of people who have lesser pedigree. These attainments are unequivocal testimonies of a man prepared for greater service to his Nation. The Senate is not a place to cut one's teeth in public service, it is a place one goes to, to complete one's public service work.
We make bold to state that the Governor of Rivers State, His Excellency, Nyesom Wike has been a friend of Dr Sandy Onor, and is likely to continue to be his friend for even much longer, the Almighty always permitting. They met as Chairmen of their various local government areas over two decades ago, when neither Governorship nor Senatorship was in their contemplation.
Dr Sandy had ran elections before Wike became Governor of Rivers State and will surely run more elections after Wike leaves office. To argue that Dr Sandy is contesting because he believes Wike will nick it for him is to stand truth on its head. Obviously, Dr Sandy Onor is about the best material amongst all the contestants to the senate seat. These facts are verifiable. Aspirants should present their credentials for public scrutiny like Dr Sandy Onor has done rather than patronizing petty gossips and character assassination.
It is equally mischievous and cowardly to attempt to coral the name of our revered Governor into the mix. The illusions of disloyalty that is being created could have found fertile soil if His Excellency, Senator (Professor Ben Ayade) was a shallow pampered potentate listening to quislings and gossip pimps who are constantly on the prowl to cause disaffection among the people. Fortunately, this Governor is far too digital, intelligent and smart to be led into a proxy war by people who are right now staying awake at night as a result of Dr Sandy's overwhelming acceptability across the zone. Clearly, the Governor himself can tell those who are truly loyal to him from those who are merely attempting to use him as a stepping stone. He can also tell those who the people want, who can win elections and those who cannot.
The aura and magnetism of Dr Sandy Onor, his vivacious intellect and that booming voice that forces even the unwilling to listen, in addition to his capacity to engender love and trust in whoever he meets were not given to him by Governor Wike. Dr Sandy is quite simply a man whose time has come. If chance and fortune seem to be smiling upon him now, it will be because even the Almighty knows his travails and has ordained that 2019 is Dr Sandy Onor's appointed time. Our politics should be ideologically based not on unfounded malicious and bias calculations.
This is simply a contest of a weak wrestler who attempts to wrestle with a stronger wrestler. As time draws nearer for the duel, the amateur wrestler, very convinced of the prowess of his contender decides to employ excuses such as laying blames on the spectators or the arena because of the fear of loosing the fight in a fair contest. It would have been better he never came out to contest in the first place knowing how great the pedigree of his contender is. However, in his momentum joy of victory in a battle he had not fought, reality struck him like tsunami, unexpected! He indict the intellect and integrity of the mere passersby or spectators who did not clap fairly, to affirmed that, he is the MAIN MAN.
Serious minded politicians should not spend time basking in the euphoria of birthday dates, body language and friendship and whatnot, while other aspirants are very relaxed, doing their grassroot consultations and felicitations with the people, keeping faith in the realisation of the Governor's visions, building up more pedigrees and profile for themselves so that, when the time comes to show "stuff" both intellectually, politically, ideologically, morally and what have you, there and then we will know that HE WHO IS, IS.
Man is at liberty to choose his friends and when he chooses right, he enjoys the company of a good fellow for it takes only a man tested worthy both in character and learning to comprehend that FRIENDSHIP is FRIENDSHIP and POLITICS is Politics.
May God help us.
Modlin Odu
Writes from Calabar
