16 months after, plans by FG to take over Wayas burial excites his community

Basang community of the late former Senate President Dr. Joseph Wayas, in Obanliku Council of Cross River State, has expressed joy over plans by the National Assembly and Federal Government to take over the burial of their son. 

The Senate had, in a motion by the Senator representing Cross River South Senatorial, Senator Gershom Bassey, and co-sponsored by Senators Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe and Sandy Onor of Cross River North and Central respectively, called on the Federal Government to urgently take over the burial plans of Wayas and that a national monument be named after him.

The President of Basang and leader of the 8th Executive Council of Basang Development Association (BDA), Mr. Anyawho Sylvanus, yesterday, in a statement in Calabar, commended Bassey and two others for taking Wayas’ burial to the National Assembly. 

He said: “We receive and watch in appreciation your motion as was presented at Senate plenary on Tuesday, April 4, 2023, calling on the Federal Government to take over the burial arrangements for our son and leader, the late Senator Joseph Wayas. The entire Basang people, both at home and in the diaspora, do appreciate your call for Federal Government’s intervention. The delayed internment of his remains has become an embarrassment to us his kinsmen.

“We also appreciate your call to the government to immortalise Senator Wayas by naming a Senate Wing after him. As his immediate community, we request through you, our representatives to the National Assembly, that a national library be built in Wayas compound, that the College of Education in Bebi be converted to Wayas University of Agriculture and that an Educational Foundation be set up to be headed by his family and Basang community. These, to us, will be a more appreciable way of immortalising Wayas.”

Recall that Wayas was the Second Republic Senate President (1979 to 1983). He died 16 months ago in London and the Cross River State government set up a committee for the burial, however, till this moment, nothing has happened and his family, led by his first son, Mr. Joseph Wayas Jnr, has had some disagreement with the state government over funds and handling of the burial.