by Kudos To Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe
I like Jarigbe Agom
I love fighters.
Jarigbe is the member representing Ogoja/Yala federal constituency in the House of Reps and he is having a running battle with governor Ayade over many things including the struggle for the Cross River North Senatorial seat.
By my make up, I am naturally drawn to the underdogs. I love their triumph. The odds are always against them but they rise.
I love Jarigbe because he has become the stormy petrel from within. I have nursed my doubts about his complete sincerity to follow through in his insistence that the right thing must be done by Governor Ayade. I always told him he will soon drop the gauntlet like they characteristically do in their party PDP, and enter a room then come out smiling with Governor Ayade and leave us with only pictures to publish. So far, he has proven me wrong.
Jarigbe has demonstrated the firmness and effrontery that Cross River North needs in her next Senator. Governor Ayade’s first shot in the Senate when he was a green horn himself representing the same Cross River North Senatorial district before becoming governor, was to take on the red chamber frontally without fear or favor.
The Senate under General David Mark, was deliberating in plenary over capital punishment for kidnappers. In his very famous intervention, Senator Ayade stepped up and berated the Senate and accused his colleagues of playing the ostrich when they collect millions of Naira and want to legislate the capital punishment for kidnappers who are mostly unemployed youths. This contribution made headlines and also cost Ayade some speaking time in the red chambers subsequently, after the leadership of the Senate began to see him as a rising threat. That is the stuff that Cross River North senators are made of. Tough, fearless, and knowledgeable. They have the ability to confront nonsense and call it what it is. That is the mould Jarigbe has cast himself in the last one year in Cross River.
In a state where stakeholders with a louder voice that his. In a State with three former governors who are alive and kicking, a State with a former Senate leader of the Federal republic, a state with a minister in opposition, a State with former ministers and former this and that, who have mostly refused to stand up to be counted in the face of the arrogance of our governor, Jarigbe has been able to make himself available for the many Cross Riverians looking out for those that should call our governor to order. Jarigbe who may not be as rich as we perceive other individuals, is spending money, time, energy and building structures and getting down to the people to give them an alternative voice, yet he is in the governor’s party while the opposition politicians in the State are no where to be found.
I feel a huge sense of relief because the trend where our governor feels that he can continue to hand pick individuals and stifle opportunities for the growth of choice and democracy particularly in northern Cross River must be challenged. Two male members of the State House of Assembly died and the governor sits and says their wives should go and replace them. A Senator dies and you bring up another stooge to impose on us?
Are you God?
Even if Jarigbe doesn’t win in the end, I am from Northern Cross River, I will be happy that he would have taught governor Ayade that you cannot always ride on a people roughshod and go away without bruises.
Thank you.
Yours sincerely
Citizen Agba Jalingo.
Disclaimer: The Opinions in this are strictly that of Agba Jalingo and does not represent The Lumine News or its agent.
