March 02, (THEWILL) – A chieftain of the All Progressives Congress in Cross River state and CEO of Opal Group High Chief Higgins Peters says the party in the state will no more take things for granted.
High Chief Higgins was reacting to the recent by-elections in Cross River state where his party won the Ogoja Yala federal constituency seat but lost the Akpabuyo state constituency.
He told TheWill that his party did not expect the kind of challenge posed by the opposition but the party has learned a great deal and will restrategize and restructure ahead of the next general elections.
In his words, “If I tell you seated here that it was easy I will be telling a lie we took it for granted that we were the government.
“We were the establishment and if any one of you had known the politics of the state, the politics has always been that of the establishment.
“This is the first time that Cross River state will have a credible opposition, an opposition that has been entrenched in the people’s mind because it was almost like a culture.
“Everyone in Cross River state were all in the PDP so moving from PDP to the mainstream and then looking at the PDP as the opposition was a challenge and these were the challenges we did not recognize until we got to the field.
“The level of fight we had in the field was not the fight we envisaged because we taught since we were the establishment it was going to be an easy ride but I will tell you without any equivocation that it was not an easy ride.
“I can tell you that going forward we will not take things for granted anymore and it will not be the same. The establishment will take control of the state as it were,” High Chief Higgins said.
He added that the difference of just 2000 votes shows it was a clean and clear election.
“You saw the margin of victory, like I said it was not expected. I expected a landslide, an extermination of the opposition but you can see that it was just 2000 votes.
“This was one of the best elections conducted by INEC, if anyone contested that election, it means the person is just being dubious.
“If the establishment wanted to employ external forces to rig the elections, you would not have the result you have now. It was a clean and clear election and a clear victory,” High Chief Higgins said.
About the Author
