Cross River State has entered a season of political argument, with disappointment being converted into anger and anger into the search for a scapegoat. Governor Bassey Otu has become the latest victim, with the media seemingly working with external forces to shut down voices of his recovery and continuity. The complaints are familiar, including abandoned infrastructure, insufficient new projects, and poor development across local governments.
The concerns about the state's development should not be dismissed, but there is a danger when legitimate dissatisfaction becomes irrational political irritability. This is where the tendency to attribute every accumulated failure of the state to the government presently in office, while forgetting the historical chain through which those failures were produced, becomes problematic. René Girard's theory of mimetic desire provides a useful lens to examine this phenomenon.
The Liyel-Duke debate has exposed what was lost for lack of continuity, and ambitious projects without economic dividends or impact on the people. The monumental disaster of Benedict Ayade's administration also demonstrates the importance of governance and budget performance. At least there was governance in the days of Donald Duke and Liyel Imoke, with budget performance and impact that was not the case in Ayade's administration.
Imoke's administration placed considerable emphasis on rural development, roads, electricity, healthcare, and infrastructure. He has recently explained that, when faced with the burden of sustaining Tinapa and simultaneously meeting basic obligations to citizens, he prioritized rural development, healthcare, education, and infrastructure. He has also defended continuity as a principle of governance.
Ayade represented a different developmental philosophy, pursuing industrialization and large infrastructure projects, including the proposed Bakassi Deep Seaport and the superhighway. However, contemporary assessments recognized the ambition but also identified funding constraints and concerns about the limited development of some inherited tourism and rural-development programs.
Governor Otu inherited an accumulated history of development failures and has initiated several projects, including 127 kilometers of roads and over 426 kilometers of road projects across categories. The 2026 state budget also lists major projects across various areas. However, citizens are entitled to ask where the roads are functioning, which communities have received them, and what measurable economic or social benefit has resulted.
The administration has adopted recovery and continuity as central themes, with former Governor Imoke praising Otu for completing projects inherited from previous administrations. Otu's burden is greater than his defenders sometimes admit, as he needs to demonstrate the impact of his projects and prevent today's new infrastructure from becoming tomorrow's abandoned project.
Key points
- Governor Bassey Otu faces criticism for Cross River State's development.
- The state's development failures have been attributed to various administrations, including those of Donald Duke, Liyel Imoke, and Benedict Ayade.
- Governor Otu has initiated several projects, but citizens are questioning their impact.
