Today, Monday, May 29th, 2023, in large parts of Nigeria, new governors will be sworn-in for a four-year tenure in office.
In Cross River State, preparations for today’s inauguration have reached fever pitch and it is only a matter time before Bassey Edet Otu, takes the reins as the 18th governor of Cross River State.
Who is Bassey Edet Otu?
Bassey Edet Otu was born on October 18th, 1959, to the Late Eld. & Mrs. Edet Okon Otu of Adiabo in Odukpani Local Government Area, CRS. He primarily grew up in Jos, Plateau State and in Calabar, where his clergy father worked assigned roles as a cleric in the Church of Scotland Mission.
A former federal lawmaker, Otu was elected member of House of Representatives in April 2003 and reelected in April 2007. In the 2007-2011 House, he was a member of House committees on Power, Ministry of Niger Delta, Inter-Parliamentary Relations, Inter-Intra Party Relations, Environment and Defence. He was also Chairman of the House of Representatives Committee on Petroleum Resources (Upstream). He has extensive banking experience.
Remarkably, in the run-in to the House of Reps elections, in the PDP primary elections for the Cross River South Senate seat, Otu beat the serving senator, Bassey Ewa Henshaw to become the party’s candidate, going on to defeat Eyo Etim Nyong, a professor, of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN then) with 112,144 votes to Nyong’s 19,378.
In the 2023 gubernatorial elections, he won in 15 of the 18 local government areas of the state and was consequently declared winner and governor-elect.
Happily married to Eyoanwan Bassey Otu with children, the sobriquet, ‘Sweet Prince’, often captures the level of his philanthropic connection to the people.
Otu, it was widely reported, has expressed optimism that it is possible to build a Cross River State that everyone is dreaming about.
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