One throne, 2 kings
• All the politics, intrigues, mischief about Obong of Calabar war
By EMERSON GOBERT, JR
Monday, May 19, 2008

•Photo: EMERSON GOBERT, JR.

The friendly ambience of Nigeria’s answer to the biblical Canaan, Calabar, the capital of Cross River State, is swiftly giving way to anarchy and thuggery in its traditional setting, caused by a bitter controversy surrounding the Obongship of Calabar.

Since Edidem (Prof.) Nta Elijah Henshaw passed on recently, crisis has engulfed the city over the royal stool which even the late Henshaw occupied amid controversy. However, the Obongship which has existed for more than five centuries is not new to tussles. History is replete with internal wranglings that almost always precede the ascension of a new Obong. But the uniqueness of the latest crisis is that it is a case of one throne and two kings laying claim to it.

On one side is Edidem Bassey Ekpo Bassey and on the other, His eminence, Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu V, and the two titans have their loyal followers. While Bassey, a journalist, administrator and politician has taken full advantage of his estate, the media, Otu V, an engineer, has taken over the palace with his retinue of loyalists. There is high-level politicking, intrigues and mischief that have brewed tension which if not difused fast, may degenerate into a full-scale physical war.

Days after the demise of Prof. Henshaw, Bassey Ekpo Bassey was proclaimed the new Obong of Calabar. The development was not just in the local media but also on the internet. However, opposition mounted against the pronouncement thus raising questions on the criteria for selection, due process and whose turn it is to produce the new Obong as there was an earlier agreement on how to pick anew Obong. Besides, there is the unsettling development in the area known as Calabar or Efik kingdom which has split geographically.

On the 29th of April, 2008, a group called the Concerned Efik Women clad in black and carrying palm fronds marched through some streets of Calabar into the Obong’s palace on a solidarity visit to the Etubom’s Council. Inasmuch as there was police presence in the palace, there were also wild youths with horse whips controlling movement along adjoining streets to the palace. Succintly put, the women were at the palace in support of the choice of Etubom Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu as the new Obong of Calabar. As they said, an Obong of Calabar is not made on the pages of newspapers.

Addressing the women, the chairman of the Etuboms’ Council, His Royal Highness, Etubom Essien Ekpenyong Efiok, assured the women that nothing on earth would divide the Efiks again. He later told Daily Sun at the palace of the Obong of Calabar that there are procedures in selecting an Obong which Bassey Ekpo Bassey had not gone through so could not be accepted as Obong of Calabar.
But as far as Etubom Bassey Oko Bassey Duke, who is the Etubom of Duke House, is concerned, Bassey Ekpo Bassey is a man who believes in rascality and does not have any limit to it hence should not be taken seriously.

Where Etubom Bassey Duke may have been cautious in his diction, Bassey Ekpo Bassey could not escape the vitriolic fangs of His Royal Highness, Etubom Otu Efa Otu from Abiaobo. He likened Bassey Ekpo Bassey’s position to that of Lucifer, who was in heaven, but was thrown out for disobedience.
But cerebral Bassey Ekpo Bassey is undaunted. If controversy is not his other name then it may be a middle name. He is known for his resilience and doggedness. He told Daily Sun that anybody who is opposing him should show where he erred traditionally and he will prove how ridiculous the point is. As far as he is concerned, he has been capped at the shrine and that is the clincher. “I am the Obong of Calabar,” he declared emphatically, flaunting pictures taken during his installation.

He went ahead to describe his opponents as his juniors in the Etuboms’ Council, who are fed on a diet of illegality, accusing the Cross River State Deputy Governor, Mr Effiom Cobham, of running a militia which he is using to support his (Bassey’s) opponents. The gravity of his allegation made Daily Sun to seek the deputy governor’s comments on the matter but the Chief Press Secretary, Effiong Okon, who spoke on behalf of his boss said the deputy governor was neutral: “Government cannot, on one hand, be using money to maintain law and order while fomenting crisis on the other. It is illogical,” he submitted.

The press secretary described Ekpo Okon Abasi Otu V as a product of due process. “What Bassey did has never happened in Efik history”, he said, so, summed it up as an abomination of its kind.
The 59-year-old Electronics engineer denied being sponsored by government as he has spent almost his entire life in the federal civil service and lived in Lagos and Warri. His father was a member of the Etuboms’ Council.

Otu V, who was speaking with the Press for the first time after his installation, exclusively told Daily Sun that he will focus on the unification of all Efik Houses to strengthen them in all ways and let everybody have a sense of belonging such that “we can forge ahead as one family.”

But an uneasy calm pervades the atmosphere in Calabar. People are having a field day, asking who is your Obong? Already, it has become a matter for the court of law. There are fears that if something concrete was not done fast to ensure a quick resolution of this royal logjam, the legendary definition of the first capital of Nigeria, CALABAR – Come And Live And Be At Rest – may be threatened and the government’s desire to make Cross River State a tourism destination of the sub-Sahara may afterall be an illusion despite the huge money committed to that dream.

A senior citizen in the state, who expressed his concern on condition of anonymity, wondered why there should always be trouble with the stool of the Obong of Calabar. Hear him: “To be candid, what Bassey Ekpo Bassey has done is wrong. He did not follow due process. There’s a million dollar question: Can the government allow an individual to commit the same crime twice? Is Basey Ekpo Bassey above the law? A kingmaker should be contented to be a kingmaker and not a king.

“Can the government be a coward not to call a spade a spade? This journalist did it the first time and is doing it again. Can’t he be called to order? Why are they afraid of him? To stop this turbulence, the government should not lie low because if the government keeps quiet, we don’t know what will happen to the youths because they are saying that Basey Ekpo Bassey is not the Obong. It can bring about crisis and killings. We are not happy. We like to live in peace. We don’t like thugs going to fight anybody.”
This worry typifies the tension and anxiety that has ensnared Calabar residents who are closely following the unwholesome drama.

Efforts to contact the state Commissioner of Police for his side of the story on police involvement were futile as at the time of going to the Press. If the rumblings over the stool of Obong should be allowed to bursts, the situation may become an antithesis of the biblical Canaan.
Meanwhile, the two parties have a court date on May 21. But some persons are still questioning if it is a matter for the court to decide who is the authentic Obong of Calabar. All the messy details are in the ensuing interviews. The package is a made-in-Calabar theatre of the absurd, dippen in politics, intrigues and mischief.